Have you ever thought about why we have Community Service Day or what it really is about? Community service has been a huge part of the SLU campus from the very beginning. When SLU first opened as a college in 1898, community service was required once a week by the students. As the student population grew and different priorities came about, community service changed to once a semester on a particular day. This occurred on a random Saturday each Fall and Spring semester, which meant students had to wake up early to serve the community at 8:00 in the morning. Many of the students loathed this, but they did it because it was required for certain classes or organizations. Ten years ago, a group of students taking a leadership class thought there was not enough participation on community service day, so they approached Paige Ramsey-Hamacher, the chair of the community service day program for the last ten years. They proposed the idea of changing community service day to the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday, and the student population agreed this would be a better idea.