Over the Halloween weekend, the America East Conference welcomed SAAC (Student-Athlete Advisory Committee) representatives from each of the nine member institutions for the semi-annual SAAC meeting at the conference office. Following a day of meetings and discussion, the SAAC representatives volunteered their time to paint and clean up a room at the Heading Home Family Shelter of Boston as part of the "Make a Difference Day", which is the national day for helping others.

During this community service project, SAAC was accompanied by America East commissioner Patrick Nero, Associate Commissioner for Compliance/Administration Brian Barrio and Administrative Intern Marisa Viola. The opportunity to work with student-athletes from all nine member institutions proved to be invaluable for SAAC chair Maggie Sabatino.

"I'm really going to benefit from this experience," explained Sabatino. "I have met some phenomenal people from all these different schools. This opportunity to interact with these people has really given me a great sense of the kind of people in our conference and it makes me really proud to be a part of America East."

For America East commissioner Patrick Nero, the time spent with the SAAC representatives only served to further enforce his opinion that these student-athletes are tremendous representatives both on the playing field and in the community.

"This is an example of what we want people to see about the America East Conference - a group of tremendously gifted student-athletes, making time to work together and give back to their community."

While in Cambridge, the SAAC representatives led a vigorous and informative forum in which representatives from the America East discussed a multitude of ways to improve communication between the conference and the student-athletes. This informative discussion should allow the conference to continue and develop a strong relationship with the students of each of the nine member institutions.