Cardinals Lend Some Muscle to Local Organizations

On Monday, Aug. 14, members of the St. John Fisher University football team and coaching staff tackled a host of tasks and odd jobs for 11 area non-profit organizations and schools during the fourth annual Cardinal Community Day.

Cardinal Community Day is a collaboration between the football program and the Office of Campus Ministry, and over the years, has served dozens of area schools, agencies, community centers, and non-profits across Monroe County.

Jon Schott, assistant director of campus ministry, said the day allows the program to weave into their training camp an opportunity to “get out and blitz the community with able bodies and hands,” accomplishing in hours tasks that might take days for the organizations to complete on their own. Over the years, the players and coaches have moved furniture, painted stairwells or classrooms, organized spaces, and performed gardening and landscape clean-up, among other tasks.

A representative from St. Rita School in Webster expressed gratitude in a note to the Office of Campus Ministry following the day. It read, in part, “We would like to say a huge thank you to the group of 12 football players that you sent our way today! They were amazing! They tackled all the jobs we threw at them in record speed and were very pleasant, polite, and kind young men. The jobs they completed would have taken our summer staff at least a couple of days, and they knocked them out in less than two hours! A true testament to ‘many hands make light work’!”