Next week, WKU will join campuses and communities across the nation by participating in National Volunteer Week.

Through canned food competitions, cleaning projects and more, the WKU ALIVE Center and Student Activities have organized and created a plethora of opportunities to give back to the community.

There will be three large on-campus opportunities taking place during that week: CANstruct for a Cause, a Yard Sale and Style a Senior.

For CANstruct, volunteers will try to collect as many canned goods as possible, then proceed to build structures out of all collected cans.

Brittany Ryan, a National Volunteer Week Planning Committee member and representative of the ALIVE Center, said this is her third year working on Volunteer Week.

“This is a really good event, with a good number of groups showing up to compete,” she said. “In the past, we had medical groups on campus make a hospital room and bed out of the cans.”

This event will take place on Tuesday at the Center for Research and Development from 3 to 6 p.m.

All canned goods from the event will be donated to the WKU Food Pantry and other local food banks.

Hunter Williams, another Committee member and representative of Student Activities, is looking forward to all of the upcoming activities, especially the Yard Sale.

“A big event we’re working on is the Yard Sale, and we’re still taking donations for it,” Williams said. “We’ve had everything from furniture to picture frames, jewelry, clothes donated. We’re not turning much away.”

The Yard Sale will be from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Wednesday in Centennial Mall. Items for this sale will not be priced at more than ten dollars. Proceeds will benefit local organizations.

Style A Senior is an opportunity to take old shirts and turn them into scarves for senior citizens. It will be from noon to 2 p.m. outside of Cravens Library, or in case of rain, in Cravens Room 111.

There will also be a photo contest during the week. Staff and students helping out during the week can submit a picture and caption that depicts how they’ve helped their community.

Submitted photos will be displayed during the latter half of the week. The winning photo will be decided based on staff and student votes.

Crystal Hardeman, a committee member and representative of Student Activities, said all volunteer events are ID swipeable for those needing to fulfill service requirements for courses and other organizations.

“We’re helping out the community, joining as a whole to make sure that we as a WKU community service the Bowling Green community,” she said.

Students who want to get involved can like the Facebook page “WKU National Volunteer Week” for updates throughout the week.

There will be at least two volunteer opportunities a day, one on-campus and one off-campus. Full listings of all activities and opportunities available for the week are located on WKU Volunteer Week’s website.