Photo by Deb Gau Southwest Minnesota State University students, faculty and staff members participated in Day of Service. Above, Bridget Arkell, Natasha Boe and Amber Kinner-Alahakoon prepared boxes worth of apple slices for Esther’s Kitchen.

MARSHALL — Not all of Southwest Minnesota State University’s homecoming activities take place on campus.

On Wednesday, SMSU students and staff went out into the surrounding community working on cleanup projects and more.

A group of students from Residence Life gathered outside the Marshall Area YMCA scrubbing and disinfecting foam building blocks used by youths at the Y.

Ben Kraft, a resident assistant at SMSU, said students had the chance to sign up for volunteer work.

“It was a good thing to do,” Kraft said.

Wednesday was the second annual Mustangs Give Day of Service. A total of around 250 students, faculty and staff signed up for service projects in Marshall and surrounding communities.

“The response has been very strong both years,” said Melissa Scholten, director of career services at SMSU.

Scholten was busy coordinating volunteers throughout the day Wednesday.

Scholten said the Mustangs worked on a variety of projects. The community service projects actually started Tuesday night with volunteers packing food for Marshall Food4Kids.

On Wednesday, student and staff groups spread out to clean up SMSU campus gardens, Marshall schools, and other parts of the city. Some volunteers did meal prep work for Esther’s Kitchen, while others helped install smoke detectors in the communities of Tyler and Russell.

More service projects are planned for today and next week, Scholten said.

“We’ve got a lot of volunteers helping with the Prairie Jam set-up,” she said.

Volunteers said it was fun to help out in the community. Some of the service projects were especially fitting. The crew of workers dusting and cleaning windows at the one-room schoolhouse at the Lyon County Fairgrounds included faculty from the SMSU education department.

Kraft said he was happy to learn he would be part of the volunteer group at the YMCA.

“I’m glad I got to come here. I go to the Y every day,” he said.

“I think it’s good,” SMSU residence assistant Gina Huhnerkoch said of the opportunity to do service work. “I was in 4-H, so I did a lot of this stuff.”

One of the student volunteers Wednesday traveled to be part of the Day of Service. Matthew Maloney drove all the way from Zumbrota to Marshall to volunteer. Maloney is a psychology student and co-president of the SMSU Psychology Club. Although he was taking SMSU courses online, Maloney said it was good to be able to meet up with club members and be part of the university in person.

“It’s great meeting people and engaging with the community,” Maloney said.