Step Forward Day Recap: Men's Volleyball
9/8/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Volleyball
MALIBU, Calif. - The 26th annual Step Forward Day was celebrated at Pepperdine on Saturday (Sept. 6), and the Waves' athletic teams were out in full force serving the community.
Thousands of students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends, as well as dozens of campus organizations, including classes, dorms, fraternities, sororities, and clubs, came together to assist nonprofit organizations, schools, churches and parks throughout Southern California.
Step Forward Day began in 1988 when two Pepperdine students recognized the need for volunteers in the local community and sought to encourage service among their peers. The projects began as small acts of service from helping to repair homes of local senior citizens to planting gardens at Webster Elementary School. Today the annual event has grown not only across Southern California, but also to communities nationwide as Pepperdine alumni step forward to help.
The men's volleyball team stayed on campus and put on a volleyball clinic in Alumni Park. Sophomore James Gehrels provided this account of his team's experience:
7:00 a.m. came awfully early on Saturday morning when the men's volleyball team participated in Pepperdine's annual Step Forward Day. For our community service we put on and coached a two-hour volleyball clinic for the USA youth Volleyball League in Alumni Park.
After checking in and receiving our t-shirts we headed to Alumni Park to set up the volleyball nets and courts. The families started showing up before the scheduled time, so we introduced ourselves and started playing with the kids who were there early. The clinic started right on time, and for two hours we taught skills, had some fun and enjoyed the day serving the community.
Toward the end of our time, we put the volleyballs away and had some non-volleyball fun including big games of tag, as well as a huge tug of war. When our time was up, we gave high fives to all the kids, and signed autographs for them, and just like that, our day of service was over.
Overall it was an awesome morning. We met some awesome kids and families and had a great time teaching the game that we love.
