Volunteering has always been an engine for personal and public advancement, and now a new program at Iowa State offers new incentives for volunteering.

In its second year, the 10,000 Hours Show encourages community service — with a twist. On April 17, volunteers who have completed 10 hours of service will be rewarded with a free concert in Iowa City featuring the band Guster.

The idea to combine community involvement with musical incentives began in 2002 when two University of Iowa students, Jacek Pruski and Mike Brooks, wanted to provide service participants from Johnson County with a free live show for their hard work. The only way to get a ticket was through volunteering.

The first show featuring Ben Folds was a success, with 876 registered volunteers with more than 13,000 volunteer hours in attendance. This year, with better organization, the event has been launched statewide with a goal of 1,000 volunteers at 10 hours each, totaling 10,000 hours, said Amanda Styron, executive director of the event.

“Since last year went really well and it laid the foundation [for this year], opening it up statewide was the next step,” she said.

Statewide participation means the use of team leaders at the major universities.

ISU volunteers hope to get 400 people signed up and have been actively recruiting in the past two weeks through friends, classes and student organizations, said Shelby Sievers, ISU event team leader.

“Now that we know what an awesome project this is, we are just trying to get ISU students excited,” Sievers said.

Sievers said she would also like to collaborate with many aspects of student life at Iowa State to encourage involvement because this is a great opportunity for students.

“This is an excellent way to help students connect to their community,” said JoAnn Seeman, media relations manager for the event.

This event is also a way for the universities to come together and celebrate, said Styron. Two goals she said she hopes to accomplish through the event are getting young people to make a positive influence in society and to have U of I and ISU students come together through common bonds.

“This is a new, fun and really effective way of reaching young people and rewarding them with live music,” Styron said. “Guster is an awesome live show.”

Although this event is taken one year at a time, leaders hope this will become an annual experience.

“We already have a great response in Iowa City and Johnson County,” said Seeman. “So with the expansion, [this year is] going to be bigger and better!”