On a typical Saturday, Andrew Lovrovich would be studying. But not this Saturday. The senior business major, who is community service chairman for his chapter of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, is on the grounds of a suburban Pittsburgh day camp. He is digging a shovel into some mulch-manure mix piled against a slope. The Tartans football running back fills wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow with the pungent dirt. Other students push the overflowing wheelbarrows to a nearby embankment, where more university volunteers spread the contents around evenly.

This is a return visit for Lovrovich. He volunteered at the camp last year as part of Carnegie Mellon's 1000Plus Day of Service, which organizes members of the university community-students, faculty, alumni, staff, and their families and friends-for a day of service to the Pittsburgh community. 

Lovrovich leads Beta's involvement in this year's event, which includes volunteers in 20 Pittsburgh locales. Volunteering comes naturally to him; before his college years, he went to Catholic schools, where community service was required. He is one of 300 students at the camp, and about a third of them belong to fraternities and sororities. Many are graduate students volunteering at the camp for the first time.  

Positioned near the basketball courts, Lovrovich is surrounded by groups of students laboring at various tasks. Together, they resemble what could be described as a United Nations contingent-African Americans, Indians, Europeans, and Asians among the nationalities-all directed by employees of the nonprofit that owns and runs the camp for urban youngsters. 

Randy Goodnight, director of youth services for the Hosanna House nonprofit, oversees work on the basketball courts, not far from where Lovrovich and his friends are working. "We usually put one coat on [the court surface] each year," he says, nodding his head in grateful approval of the students' work. "This helps." 

The unusually warm, sunny day seems to increase the happy chatter among groups of students working to re-tar the basketball courts and tennis courts. Meanwhile, Lovrovich has moved on to some hillside tree removal work. He yells, "Timber!" as he and a fraternity brother use a handsaw to cut down a dying tree on the camp property.  

Next, Lovrovich turns his attention to a stack of lumber to be moved from a spot on the tennis courts. He picks up a two-by-four and balances it on his shoulder-heavy lifting, though you wouldn't know it from the smile on his face.
-Jonathan Barnes (HS'93)