As a student at Puget Sound, we encourage you to use what you’re learning in the classroom to benefit the wider community. The Civic Engagement and Leadership program connects students to the city of Tacoma through civic engagement, social justice, and service-learning activities. You’ll become a more engaged member of the community while volunteering with one of our partner agencies and nonprofits on issues of youth advocacy, ecological advocacy, food insecurity, reproductive rights, and more.
Civic Engagement & Leadership
Puget Sound Votes
Puget Sound Votes seeks to get Loggers engaged with local and national politics, take part in civic discourse, and register to vote. Students can get involved in outreach efforts, get out the vote events, and voting rights initiatives.
Leadership Opportunities
At Puget Sound, we encourage students to take an active role on campus. As a student leader, you’ll develop your confidence while helping your peers get connected to the community life on campus. There are many opportunities to get involved as a student staff member in the Office of Intercultural Engagement, be an orientation leader, train to be a Puget Sound Outdoors trip leader, work in Residence Life, volunteer with a student religious organization, and more.
Food Justice
In response to rising economic inequality in Washington, Puget Sound has established two programs, Backpacks of Hope and Food Salvage, to give students an active role in alleviating hunger in Tacoma. Backpacks of Hope provides food over the weekend for children at 26 Tacoma schools who are at-risk for hunger. The Food Salvage collaborates with Dining & Conference Services to package and deliver food that would normally go to waste on campus and delivers it to Guadalupe House, a transitional house in downtown Tacoma.
Hurley Community Service Scholarship
See a need in our community? You can apply for a scholarship from the university, ranging from $4,500-6,500 to pursue a 5-hour-per-week community service project under the mentorship of the Associate Director for Civic Engagement & Leadership. Project proposals should fill an existing community need and must include collaboration with at least one community organization.