Service Month Planned In Partnership With CFES - AmericaEast.com CAMBRIDGE, Mass.-- Building off of last spring's successful conference-wide College For Every Student (CFES) Student Service Day, America East Conference athletic departments are participating in April's service month. All of the service activities, which include fundraising efforts, spring cleaning and food drives, will be done in partnership with each university's designated mentee school. CFES is a national non-profit that helps underserved kids attend college. The unique America East/CFES partnership launched in the fall of 2010 where Collegiate student-athletes serve as mentors for CFES scholars at partnership schools. The college-student activities include tutoring sessions, joint community service projects and campus tours that often involve watching a collegiate athletic event. For this year's service month, University of New Hampshire organized a Soles4Souls shoe drive at the Newmarket Junior High School. All teams, coaches and athletic administrators participated in the drive and then invited the NJHS students to the UNH Invitational Track Meet this past Saturday, April 14. University of Vermont and UMBC will each hold events around Earth Day in the upcoming weeks. The Catamounts and the Burlington Integrated Arts Academy will engage in a stomp-rocket activity with the campus environmental group Vermont Eco-Reps on Sunday, April 22. After an informative session on campus environmental initiatives and the importance of recycling, the mentors and mentees will together create fun rockets using recycled materials. UMBC mentors will travel to Arbutus Middle School on Saturday, April 27 and will participate in activities and events with their CFES scholars in collaboration with the Maryland Association of Environmental and Outdoor Education. After encouraging the mentees to take responsibility for their environment, the Retrievers will then invite the AMS students to campus for a baseball game on Sunday, April 28. Binghamton University, Boston University and University of Hartford, in partnership with West Middle School, Jackson Mann Middle School and the Hartford Magnet School, respectively, are planning spring cleaning and beautification projects on Sunday, April 28. The Bearcats and their mentees will go to the Danielle House, an organization providing shelter and emotional support for family members visiting seriously ill patients in Binghamton-area hospitals, to clean indoors and outdoors and assist in mulching and gardening. The Terriers will paint murals at Jackson Mann Middle School alongside the students, while the Hawks and the scholars will be planting, repainting and cleaning around the magnet school grounds. University at Albany and University of Maine are coordinating month-long service projects. The Great Danes, partnering with Hackett Middle School and the American Cancer Society, are selling pin-up cards for Coaches vs. Cancer. They will be presenting a check afterwards for the money raised during the project. The Maine student-athletes and the Lewis Libby School scholars have started a BackPack Food program and will be hosting a food drive on both campuses and then packing the bags with the food together on Fridays throughout the month and continuing through the rest of the semester. About CFES College For Every Student (www.collegefes.org) is a non-profit organization that has created college-access partnerships with more than 500 schools across the country serving more than 100,000 students. CFES partners K-12 schools with colleges to implement three primary core practices: Pathways to College-- college visits, and partnerships with colleges and college students; Peer Mentoring-mentee/mentor relationships; and Leadership Through Service-leadership development workshops and community service. For more information, please visit www.collegefes.org, or call 802-462-3170.