Fairfield on Fire: Campus Ministry Celebrates 10th Annual Community Service Day

On Saturday, Oct. 4, 179 Fairfield students participated in the University’s 10th annual community service day.

Hosted by Campus Ministry,

Fairfield on Fire offers students the opportunity to connect with the local community through acts of service. Students signed up with their club, team, residence hall floor, classmates or individually to spend the day on projects that ranged from gardening, home repair, and community clean-ups to working with children and visiting with senior citizens.

Starting at 9 a.m. on the unusually warm October weekend morning, student volunteers arrived at five different service sites throughout Bridgeport and Fairfield. At Sturges Ridge of Fairfield, an assisted living and memory care facility, they celebrated a resident's birthday, cleaned out a game closet, brought residents to breakfast, and talked over coffee. They also assisted and participated in a chair yoga session led by graduate student Sam Smoot.

Nursing major Caroline Carnes ’26 befriended a Sturges Ridge resident and encouraged her to try yoga for the first time. “She was so nervous to start her yoga practice,” Carnes said, “but we did it together. She told me she has always wanted to attend. We talked about her grandkids, sports, and yoga. She was so encouraged throughout, and afterwards she said she felt much better.”

While the Sturges Ridge residents were enjoying the morning with their Stag visitors, another group of students was helping out at the Black Rock Food Pantry, packaging weekly groceries for guests. On campus, yet another team of volunteers packed snacks and wrote notes for after-school bags to be distributed to local kids through the Filling in the Blanks nonprofit organization.

At Green Village Initiative, a Bridgeport-based organization that promotes food justice through urban gardening and education, groups of students worked to prepare the raised bed gardens for winter. Among them was finance major Aidan Brunt ’28, the founding grand knight of the newly formed Fairfield Ignatian Council student group. Nine of Brunt’s brother knights joined him at the garden, marking their first service activity together.

To end the day, Stag volunteers partnered with the City of Bridgeport’s Sustainability Office on a project to clean up a section of 20 bioswales along Seaview Ave. Designed to reduce flooding and pollution, bioswales are vegetated open channels that collect, slow, filter, and treat storm water runoff from streets and other impervious surfaces.

Katie Byrnes, EdD’25, who serves as campus minister for social justice and community engagement, helped launch Fairfield on Fire in 2015. Reflecting on the initiative's growth over the past decade, Dr. Byrnes said she is proud of the service-minded volunteers who step up to help the greater Bridgeport and Fairfield communities each year. “It was great to see students up at 8:45 a.m. this weekend, ready and energized to work,” she said.  noting that this tenth anniversary marked the largest number of student participants since Covid.

Not just on a single day but throughout the year, Campus Ministry hosts hundreds of volunteer events in partnership with local organizations to provide service to children, animals, and vulnerable populations.

To learn more about community service opportunities through Campus Ministry, please visit fairfield.edu/cs.

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