A baker’s dozen of students returned to campus Sunday, tired from a road trip that hit stops across the state determined by blind stabs with markers at a map of Nebraska.
The graduating class of the Innocents Society, the secretive chancellor’s honor society at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, picked 13 Nebraska towns pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey-style and led the group in volunteering at each site over a four-day period.
“We hit all corners of the state and made a pretty ambitious loop,” said the group’s spokesperson, whose identity the Innocents wish to withhold.
The Innocents’ state-spanning arch hit as far north as Newcastle and stretched west to Chadron.
The group decided to hit the road with service instead of throwing a large-scale fundraising event like the past few classes, in part because of the state of the economy, the spokesperson said.
After filling a 13-passenger van and an extra car with supplies and honor students, the caravan set out on Thursday afternoon.
Society members called city governments weeks in advance to plan projects. They ended up lending hands for a variety of projects, including restoring an auditorium, doing chores for a man with cancer, painting, trash-hauling and telling schoolchildren about the importance of volunteering.
The time constraints of one weekend and a car trip that racked up more mileage by 10 miles than a one-way drive from Lincoln to Boston boiled project time down to two hours in each town. For the most part, everything stayed on schedule, the spokesperson said. The group arrived late in just one town, by about 10 minutes.
Snow frosted progress on a few plans out west.
Digging out rocks to prepare a plot of land for gardening in Chadron took one more step than anticipated — shoveling the snow that covered them.
Bad weather completely eliminated the planned project in Imperial. Instead of painting lines on handicap parking spaces and cleaning up a park, Innocents served lunch in a nursing home and chatted with residents.
One man who graduated from the Nebraska Agriculture College in 1932 told stories of the shenanigans students played on then-rival UNL, which was a separate entity at the time.
“The students seemed to have a good time, and the residents had a ball,” said Jo Leyland, city administrator for Imperial. “They were just over the moon.”
Conversation extended to plans for the future and marriage in the hour or so students were at St. John’s Food Pantry in Valentine, said Darlene Pabst, director of the pantry.
The Innocents’ spokesperson said the group learned that little acts of kindness add up.
“If we gained nothing else we gained just the privilege of them showing up here,” Pabst said. “They are tremendous ambassadors for the university and for Nebraska. They’re a great group of kids.”
rachelalbin@dailynebraskan.com
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