Providence College Students: Transforming Society

Posted on May 13, 2026

“Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.”

– Mother Teresa

Community service remains a cornerstone of the student experience at Providence College, where thousands of volunteer hours are completed each year. During the 2025-2026 academic year, PC’s culture of giving reached more than 83 community agencies, schools, and non-profits across the Greater Providence area.

For many students, service is a “way of life” that often begins in their early days in Friartown and fosters deep connections with their adopted home. This year, the College reported $11.4 million in community contributions, a testament to the scale of its local impact. Student-led initiatives and institutional programs are coordinated through several key campus areas, including: Office of the Chaplain/Campus Ministry, the Office of Student Affairs, the Feinstein Institute for Public Service, the Office of Public Affairs, Government and Community Relations, the Student Athlete Advisory Council, and many of the College’s student clubs, organizations, and service-learning classes.

FriarServe is a service initiative now in its ninth year. In 2017, PC committed a $100,000 gift to Catholic schools in the Diocese of Providence in celebration of the College’s Centennial and in support of Catholic education in RI. In 2021, PC announced a second gift of $100,000, reaffirming the College’s support of Catholic education in the diocese. The College’s gifts were made through the Diocesan Catholic School Office (CSO) in equal sums for four years, with two major components. The money is used for scholarships given to students attending Catholic elementary and secondary schools via the CSO’s Anchor of Hope Fund, a diocesan financial assistance fund that helps financially strapped families secure a Catholic school education for their children. A portion of the funds are set aside specifically for five Catholic Pre-K – 8 schools in the Greater Providence area: Bishop McVinney School (South Providence), Blessed Sacrament School (Mt. Pleasant), St. Augustine School (also Mt. Pleasant), St. Pius V School (Elmhurst) and St. Rocco School (Johnston). Monetary donations now total $300,000 after a third $100,000 commitment in the summer of 2025.

Perhaps the most important aspect of FriarServe is its community service component. PC students, staff and faculty are invited to volunteer at each of the five above-mentioned schools during the academic year. Not all schools have the same programs, but all have more than one. FriarServe continued its dedicated service to those schools again this academic year, providing activities including art club, tutoring, classroom assistance, homework help, gym takeover, as well as reading times.

Volunteer statistics for the 2025-2026 year of FriarServe are as follows:

Total numbers of volunteers: 213; Total number of volunteer hours: 1,798

Other notable PC student service projects:

53 PC first-year students participated in the FaithWorks pre-orientation service immersion program in August. The program, now in its thirteenth year, is led by upperclassmen peers (this year 22 upperclassmen). Sponsored by Campus Ministry, FaithWorks enables new PC students to build community with their peers, perform service work for vulnerable populations in Providence, and reflect on the significance of this work for their own lives. The participants were able to do service with sites in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, including Little Sisters of the Poor, My Brother’s Keeper; St. Patrick Cemetery, Smith Hill Early Child Development Center, Mother of Life Center, Emmanuel House Homeless Shelter, St. Augustine School, St. Pius V School, and Memorial Park.

Coordinated through Friends of San Lucas, 12 students from various corners of PC will take part once again in May Immersion to Guatemala. Students will travel to Guatemala for a week-long immersion experience volunteering on build sites, in schools, and engaging with the San Lucas Community. They will work alongside the local and Indigenous community while learning about and from them.

Students logged hundreds of hours participating in our year-round service programming. Meal service sites in Providence served Mary House, St. Edward’s, and My Brother’s Keeper. We also provided support to St. Pius V in after school programming, on campus adult literacy programs for adults with adaptive and special needs, as well as three major Special Olympics events.

Students went on the inaugural service trip to Phoenix Arizona this Spring to serve at Andre House. Founded by the Congregation of Holy Cross, Andre House provides a number of services, including meals, showers, clothing, and hygiene to the local homeless population. Serving hundreds of people each day, our students spent their spring break in communal prayer and service to others.

Students started serving the homeless population in Kennedy Plaza this year, bringing food and hygiene products to those in need.

To bring the joy of Christ to others this Christmas season, our department sponsored a giving tree that benefited the students at Smith Hill and San Miguel. Dozens of children were able to receive gifts this year as a result of the generosity of our community.

Established in 1993, the Feinstein Institute for Public Service at Providence College was created to develop academic programs focused on public service. After two decades, the Institute turned its efforts to building campus-community partnerships aimed at addressing the larger questions underlying our public and community service systems. This academic year, the Institute has collaborated with thirty-four community partners including the Community Libraries of Providence, Providence Children’s Museum, and many other organizations.

The Feinstein Institute’s Community Work Study Program placed Providence College student workers with twenty-one schools and non-profits throughout the Providence area. Forty-seven students participated in the program and used their federal work study award to serve our partners in the local community in a variety of ways, including as an after-school tutor, health care advocate, or social media intern. The students have worked over 5,000 hours within the community over the past year, gaining professional experience working in non-profits and schools and contributing to community-wide systems that support Providence community members.

The Feinstein Institute’s Feinstein Community Fellows Program brings together undergraduate students and community partners committed to improving the wellbeing for all members of our shared community. This year the program matched nineteen PC students with twelve different community organizations and two community-engaged courses. The Fellows were given their own project responsibilities ranging from supporting day-to-day efforts at Inspiring Minds, to enhancing the training and workshops at Mentor RI, to serving as health advocates at Brown University Health. All the Fellows participated in bi-weekly meetings to reflect on their service and examine social justice, non-profits, power, and privilege.  Together, they completed over 2,000 hours of service throughout the 2025-2026 school year.

Athletics:

The Athletic Department’s commitment to serve others, and our surrounding community remained consistently strong as demonstrated by the following data:

2025-26 – 4,230 service hours | $210,079 raised (as of 4/28)

2024-25 – 4,004 service hours | $63,842 raised

2023-24 – 3,824 service hours | $79,972 raised

2022-23 – 3,783 service hours | $64,801 raised

2021-22 – 3,380 service hours | $69,601 raised

* Virtual only due to COVID pandemic

2020-21 – 406 service hours*  $51,685 raised

2019-20 – 3,244 service hours | $82,486 raised

2018-19 – 3,547 service hours | $49,500 raised

2017-18 – 2,060 service hours | $28,800 raised

With 488 student-athletes across 21 varsity programs, Providence College may be smaller in size, but its reach throughout the community is extraordinary. During the 2025–26 academic year, Friar student-athletes logged 4,230 hours of community service, surpassing a new record of hours. Their collective efforts supported 69 nonprofit organizations, spanned 183 distinct service initiatives, and produced an estimated $147,180 in economic impact. In addition, student-athletes raised $210,079 in charitable donations, the most ever, demonstrating that their influence extends far beyond time alone.

A cornerstone of this year’s outreach was Providence College Athletics’ participation in the 2nd Annual Read Across the BIG EAST initiative. Throughout the month of March, 80 student-athletes visited schools and community centers to share the joy of reading. These visits resulted in 117 books read aloud to 1,460 children, forging meaningful connections and reinforcing the importance of literacy, mentorship, and presence. For many of the children involved, these moments created lasting memories—and for our student-athletes, they underscored the power of showing up with intention.

The holiday season brought another powerful demonstration of service through the department’s annual Adopt-A-Family Christmas Drive in partnership with the DaVinci Center. All 21 Providence teams donated, wrapped, and delivered over 400 holiday gifts for 83 children, many of whom otherwise would not have received presents. This initiative united teams across the department around a shared mission and reinforced the role of compassion during the most meaningful time of year.

Philanthropy also took center stage through the Swim Across America event, led by the Men’s and Women’s Swimming & Diving programs with support from Men’s Lacrosse. This year’s event raised an impressive $63,204 for cancer research, further strengthening the program’s long-standing commitment to the cause. Since the event’s inception, Providence College Swimming & Diving has generated over $484,000 in total donations, creating a legacy of impact that continues to grow each year.

Providence’s female student-athletes were especially active in serving as role models and mentors through their partnership with Girls on the Run Rhode Island. At the organization’s fall 5K event, 167 female student-athletes volunteered on-site, while 269 additional student-athletes supported participants by writing encouragement cards and creating motivational posters. This spring 268 of our female student-athletes wrote an additional 400 letters of encouragement for the spring 5K event. Their involvement sends a clear message to young girls across the state: strength, confidence, and leadership begin with believing in yourself.

New this year, Providence College Women’s Soccer established a partnership with the Strong Girls United Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering girls through sport, mentorship, and mental health programming. Throughout the spring semester, Friar student-athletes visited two local elementary schools, working directly with young students around three foundational pillars: physical activity and sport participation, mental health and well-being, and mentorship through strong female role models. Through consistent engagement and relationship-building, the program provided young girls with positive exposure to athletics while reinforcing confidence, resilience, and self-belief—values that align closely with Providence College’s mission and the lived experiences of its student-athletes.

Over the past nine years, student-athletes have completed 28,000 hours, raising $698,938. Since we began a partnership with Helper Helper in 2019, we have finished in the top 15 in Division I for community service hours every year. This year we finished number 14 in the country for service hours in the Fall semester.

The PC community also supported numerous charitable organizations:

For the eleventh year in a row, the President’s Standing Committee on Service (“the Service Board”) coordinated a Thanksgiving Drive, in partnership with the Smith Hill Advocacy and Research Partners (SHARP). The Board raised over $7,100 in monetary donations which helped provide a free Thanksgiving meal of a turkey and fixings to local families. Over 800 turkeys were distributed. These families were also presented with gift cards to local retail stores.

The Service Board also ran Pumpkinfest, Spring into Friartown, a School Supply Drive for the United Way, a food drive for the Smith Hill Library and helped Foster Forward and other community members unload thousands of boxes of toys which were donated by Hasbro. Those toys were part of the Holiday Gift Campaign, which ensures that every child in state care in Rhode Island receives a Christmas gift.

In March, the Service Board also ran a campus-wide clothing drive in conjunction with Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Rhode Island (BBBS of RI). Over 1,125 pounds of clothing were donated by members of the PC campus community to help support BBBS or RI’s mentoring programs.

Thanks to the generosity of the Friar Family (students, faculty, alumni, and families), the Office of Campus Ministry collected hundreds of gifts and gift cards for children at the Smith Hill Early Childhood Development Center and St. Patrick’s Church.