At colleges and universities nationwide, town-gown relationships vary widely. In the Quad Cities, Augustana College is making a new effort to more closely connect with its surrounding community.
In the past, students at the Rock Island private liberal-arts school volunteered without sustained relationships with organizations and neighbors beyond campus. Last spring, that changed to form Participate, a student-led initiative within Augustana’s Office of Student Life and Leadership designed to link students more consistently with community partners across Rock Island and the Quad Cities.
Founded by Reynard Benschop, director of student activities, and led by student co-chairs Rachel Byrne and Fatima Fqiyah, Participate organizes at least two community engagement opportunities each month, working with local nonprofits to match real needs with student capacity.
Since launching in spring 2025, students have partnered with organizations including the MLK Center, NEST Café, ImpactLife and Longfellow Elementary School, supporting efforts ranging from food distribution to blood donation drives and youth programming.
Byrne and Fqiyah, they help students see themselves as part of the community they live in — and understand how service, leadership and career pathways can intersect.
“It's just an opportunity to provide that transportation for those who don't have it to be able to go to different locations in the Quad Cities and give them that hands-on event,” Byrne said recently, noting Augie provides a school van for groups. “It's not necessarily a long-term thing they're a part of, but a lot of times as soon as someone comes to their first Participate event, they're really interested in the next one and the next one.”
Participate is a way to move from one-time service to sustained connection. “This work helps students build relationships, not just resumes,” said Benschop, who’s been in his position the past year and a half, overseeing 170 active clubs and organizations, including Augustana Greek life (comprised of six sororities and five fraternities).
“When I originally kind of envisioned this, one of the things was to connect volunteerism in Greek life,” he said. “I envisioned the position with Rachel in mind and then like finding her number two. We went through a bunch of interviews and Fay was a clear choice.”
Byrne, a senior from Aurora, Ill., is president of the Sigma Pi Delta sorority on campus (the oldest at Augie, founded in 1908). She’s a communication sciences and disorders major with a disability studies minor, and planning to become a speech language pathologist.
Fqiyah is a sophomore international student from Morocco, studying accounting, finance and data analytics.
In the new effort, more than 50 students have already participated, gaining experience that strengthens both community organizations and students’ sense of purpose and belonging in the QC.
Benschop approached the two students with the idea of starting a program to inspire community service in the Quad Cities, and all three partnered to implement it on a monthly basis.
“The college is really invested in our new Bold and Boundless initiative,” Benschop said of Augie’s long-range strategic plan, adopted in January 2024. “And a part of that is making sure that all of our departments are aligned with those goals, one of which being community engagement.”
“I thought that this would be a great opportunity to kind of infuse a lot more community engagement in what we do,” he said. “Just given that we're Office of Student Life. I think we've historically been very focused on campus activities and improving the student experience here on campus.
“So we wanted to kind of take a look at what opportunities we could give students outside of campus,” Benschop said. “I think that with the leadership that Fay and Rachel have provided, I think what I've seen is that's also encouraged other students to not just participate in Participate, but also start their own kinds of initiatives.
“And so in that time, we've seen Relay for Life get restarted and a new club that will focus on kind of volunteerism here on campus as opposed to outside of campus, called Student United Way.”
J term pause and planning
Since many students are off campus this month for J term, there are no Participate programs this month and they’re using it to plan for the spring semester. There also may be opportunities scheduled over the summer for students who are in the area.
“J term is really cool,” Byrne said, noting in between the traditional fall and spring semesters, they come back earlier in January, and upper-class students can take classes on or off campuses, or do study abroad or internship,
“A lot of people take the time to study abroad, so last year I went to Greece during that time,” Byrne said. “And then you can also take credits to fulfill the classes that you need. So currently I'm taking my last class I need to fulfill my disability studies minor. So I'm doing disability in theater.”
For winter break, students get three weeks off, then J term for three weeks, and a week off before the spring semester starts Feb. 4.
“I'm taking social issues and management. It's for my data analytics major,” Fqiyah said. “So it's pretty good. It's a lot of readings, but it's really worth it because you connect with people in the class during like the three weeks. So it's really focused on talking to the people in your class.
Often, Augie provides volunteers for one certain event, or at Nest Café (in downtown Rock Island), where they need volunteers all the time and they schedule students more often, Byrne said.
“We are scheduling something with the Humane Society in February and they're doing an event that they need student volunteers for,” she said. “Most of the time we just reach out to local Quad-City organizations that students have either told us they're interested in or Rey has told us has reached out to him and we work with them to figure out a way that we can provide volunteers for some need that they need filled.”
They pick the organizations often from requests from the groups themselves.
“Rey will forward us an email to be like, hey, they need volunteers. And we go, perfect, sounds wonderful,” Byrne said. “But we also have a big list of different non-profits and community organizations within the Quad Cities that we will go and we'll reach out to see if they have any need for volunteers. And a lot of times they'll be like, yeah, we have a parade next week. You guys want to come to that? And we're like, heck yeah, we would love to.”
Fqiyah said her favorite experience has been working at Nest Café (which offers food and meals by donation, based on ability to pay), and come February, plans to schedule students there the second Saturday of each month.”
“It’s really good because a lot of people in need go there and they need volunteers to help,” she said. “Seeing students being involved in helping the community is really good and they're really interested in doing so, especially international students. And international students, they don't have cars, they don't have transportation. And this is why I think Participate was also a great idea and Rey thought of it, transporting people who need to go and want to help the community.”
Byrne said it’s hard for her to pick a favorite group.
“I love all of them, I think. One of my favorites was definitely the Palomares Social Justice Center,” she said. “We helped with a community fair. So we were there helping run the games and everything for them. We helped set up, we helped take down, we helped run games, we helped hand out prizes. So that one was definitely very hands-on and I really enjoyed it. We also did Longfellow Elementary Trunk or Treat, which was very cool.”
Working with younger students is good preparation for her career plan to work with grade-school students.
“I like all the ones with little kids though. Little kids and me, we're tight,” Byrne said. “I want to be a speech language pathologist, so I just like working with pediatrics in general.”
Most volunteer on weekends
Most students volunteer on weekends, and Participate will send out all-campus emails to let people know what events are upcoming.
“A lot of students in Greek life and in groups on campus have a certain amount of service hours that they want to achieve, because it's something Augustana has necessary for some groups,” said Byrne, noting her sorority has about 70 members.
“Then we just have people looking for connection and friends and something to do on the weekend. And those are my favorites because they always like to yap with us and ask us what we do at Augustana and stuff like that,” she said.
“Every member of Greek Life is required to work three hours of service, per semester,” Byrne said. “I'm also the Greek Council service chair, so I work with corporate coordinating that across all groups.”
“It's a really great program though. It gets a lot of students involved and I think Participate existing has gotten them a lot more excited about it,” she said of volunteering. “Now it's like, oh my gosh, I can actually make a hands-on difference. I can hand kids treats at Trunk or Treat and stuff like that. And coming from the Greek life side of things, I've definitely seen a like spark of interest within the Participate program and being able to go out off of campus and into the Quad-City community to help make that difference. I think people have been really excited about it. So I'm excited to see how it grows in the future too.”
Augie has hosted an ImpactLife blood drive on campus, and Participate hopes to organize one in February.
“So really accessible to students, no transportation needed. And ImpactLife is a great organization, so they do really good work,” Byrne said. “And then we are working to help out the Humane Society of Scott County. At a recent event that they're going to be having coming up, they asked for student volunteers. So I just reached out to them today, so hopefully we can get that confirmed. And we are also hoping to start doing some collaborations with student groups.”
ImpactLife is working with Participate on a campus blood drive on Thursday, Feb. 19.
“Student leaders bring energy and connections to our work on campus and in the community,” ImpactLife public relations manager Kirby Winn said Thursday. “And often, the most effective donor recruitment is being asked to give blood by a peer. I hope the students who help with the blood drive gain as much from the experience as we do from them.
“One thing they will learn is how much ImpactLife relies on community partnerships to sustain the blood supply, so it’s good to see the focus on sustained connections among the goals of Participate as a campus organization,” said Winn, himself a 1994 Augie alum. “We appreciate the opportunity to engage with student leaders who use service as an opportunity to learn more about and connect with their college home.”
Fqiyah is also working on collaborations of Participate with the Rock Island Kiwanis, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and a Muslim group for a food drive around Ramadan.
Looking ahead, student leaders and staff envision Participate as a model for activating student leadership through community-connected learning — one that reflects Augustana’s commitment to place, partnership and student development.
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