With only a handful of weeks left before the end of the school year, Otterbein College students are working hard to make a meaningful impact on the community before leaving campus for the summer by volunteering for community service projects.

More than 200 Otterbein College students will serve 14 Columbus-area community agencies during the annual Spring Community Plunge on Saturday, April 26. The participants will volunteer over 400 hours as part of the National Earth Day Celebration. Volunteers will gather at 8:30 a.m. in the Campus Center, 100 W. Home St., Westerville.

Among the activities planned to improve the community include work at Otterbein Lake, where volunteers will be clearing away invasive vegetation, planting native plants and installing a fence. At Hanby Arts Magnet Elementary School, volunteers will be assisting with the installation of new playground equipment.

This quarter, Earth Day has inspired many students to volunteer for ongoing projects with an environmental impact. One ongoing project with the United Methodist Children's Home in Worthington, brings Otterbein College students together with the residents of this home for at-risk youth to cultivate a garden of vegetables, herbs and flowers, as well as relationships. The project is an initiative of service award-winning junior Chelsea Merriman.

Another student put a spotlight on the environment among her fellow students three years ago when she established Plan-It Earth, a student environmental service and education club. Junior Whitney Prose was recently awarded a $1,000 grant from the Carter Foundation in conjunction with the Ohio Campus Compact for her environmental work. She will use the grant for the Otterbein Lake Project, a Westerville community-led project in which Plan-It Earth has made a huge impact. The grant will fund a limestone walking path off the current bike path and an educational garden with plants identified by signs. Prose hopes Otterbein Lake will become a place where "people can reconnect with nature."

Some agencies that will be assisted during the Spring Community Plunge include the United Methodist Children's Home, Goodwill Columbus, Holy Family Soup Kitchen, Homeless Family Foundation, and IMPACT Safety, as well as several churches, libraries and elementary schools.

Otterbein's Center for Community Engagement earned the College a Presidential Award for General Community Service from the White House earlier this year with a variety of ongoing and one-time projects called community plunges. Otterbein students volunteered 38,000 hours of community service in 2006-07.

For more information and programming updates, visit the Center for Community Engagement Web site at www.otterbein.edu/cce . The spring community plunge is funded in part by Learn and Serve America, administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service, which also oversees AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, VISTA, and NCCC. The Corporation improves lives, strengthens communities, and fosters civic engagement through service and volunteering. For more information, visit www.nationalservice.gov.