Liberty Students Are Still Serving the Community Despite Covid-19 Restrictions

On a typical Sunday, Sarah Mertz, a senior psychology student, arrives at Breakthrough Church early to serve. She sets up chairs in the back room of Mission House Coffee, where Breakthrough meets. Then she stands outside, greeting those who come in.

“I feel called to work in a church,” Mertz said. “I love welcoming people into church and serving others, and if I’m going to be required to do CSER, I might as well be doing something I love.”

Mertz is referring to the Liberty University’s Christian community service requirement, or CSER. To meet the LU degree requirement, students must spend 20 hours volunteering with an approved organization every semester they are enrolled.

After serving as a community group leader, Mertz switched her CSER registration to her church, joining an average of 9,000 Liberty students who pour into local churches, nursing homes and other nonprofits each semester.

After an exception last semester for COVID-19 disruptions, the CSER requirement is back; however, some large opportunities for service are not currently available. Scaremare, which provided CSER hours for 900 students last year was canceled because of COVID-19. Other popular CSER options will have fewer openings, according to Tim Yonts, associate director of the Office of Spiritual Development at Liberty. But Yonts said only four or five of about 200 CSER registered organizations have shut down CSER altogether this semester.

“So that was phase one, making sure all of our [organizations] or at least most of them are accepting CSER students,” Yonts said. “Second part of that was identifying any opportunities that students can do remotely.”

So far, OSD  has provided 20 remote positions for immunocompromised students to request. Yonts said students could get creative on their own, too: online tutoring, video calling nursing home residents, helping churches manage live broadcasts of their services. In the past, his office avoided virtual CSER because it was difficult to ensure hours were tracked accurately. This semester Yonts helped to write a policy allowing any organization to create a remote CSER opportunity.

If necessary, Yonts said students could skip CSER this semester and make it up later. For seniors graduating in December, unfinished CSER would not necessarily keep them from walking in commencement but would impact their degrees.

“What that will affect is your degree conferral. You wouldn’t receive your degree until you completed that last CSER credit,” Yonts said. “If a senior is like that, I would encourage them to really put the effort in to find something remote or virtual that they can do for CSER.”

For students volunteering in person, Yonts’ office has 150 bags with masks, hand sanitizer and gloves in case students need them. Yonts also asked organizations offering CSER to follow safety precautions like mask wearing and social distancing. 

While Mertz is aware of the risk of carrying COVID-19 into the community, she said her church requires masks until everyone sits down, and she praised its efforts to maintain social distancing.

More information and CSER opportunities can be found at https://www.liberty.edu/osd/lu-serve/cser/.

Esther Eaton is a Feature Reporter. Follow her on Twitter at @EstherJay10.