SAN JOSE, Calif. - San José State Athletics earned its third consecutive Mountain West Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) Community Service Award, announced by the league office on Wednesday. The Spartans claimed their first-ever Mountain West SAAC Community Service Award in 2021-22 after spending over 9,000 hours of service in the community, and followed that up with more than 10,000 hours in 2022-23 and now 20,000 hours in 2023-24.
"Congrats to our student-athletes for their efforts in the community," said Director of Athletics Jeff Konya. "This is an important part of One Spartan Nation and we are setting the standard. Thank you to the Mountain West for recognizing our student-athletes for the third consecutive year and kudos to everyone involved."
"We're incredibly excited that this year our student-athletes truly stepped up along with our athletics department and we were able to double our impact from a year ago," said Assistant Athletics Director for Student-Athlete Development Tobruk Blaine. "We were able to provide greater support to our community partners in a way that we haven't done before allowing us to be a consistent presence in the communities and ultimately making a greater impact in the lives of people who are unhoused, underrepresented and underserved in San Jose."
- SJSU did 300 hours from youth mentoring and donated over 20,000 products with the sanitary and toy drives. SJSU student-athletes doubled their hours this past season in product donations.
- Coordinated & Implemented a product drive consisting of sanitary products and sports bras driven to impact housing insecure women, specifically ages 12-24 accessing shelters. Throughout the month of collection, athletes were charged with marketing, promoting, collecting, sorting, counting, and delivering the product to over four agencies.
- Over 300 hours of youth engagement through the sixth year of customized youth mentoring with Title One Elementary School.
- Paired with 100 volunteer hours with local non-profit agencies, community centers, and elementary schools to excite students about sports, inspire them to chase their academic dreams, and encourage them to go on to college.
- Over 370 hours volunteering inside community organizations, elevating underserved and represented community members' access to support services.
- Activities include food distribution at food banks, serving food at shelters, park & city clean up, community garden work, beach clean up, and community engagement events.
- Partnered with Be The Match to provide education surrounding the organization, Bone Marrow
Transplants, and what it means to join the Be The Match Registry - collecting over 100 new members of the registry. - Signed the newest member of the men's soccer team through Team Impact, providing mentorship and support for a community youth member facing a life-changing disability - embracing his love for soccer and giving him a team/teammate to help him through his adversities.
- Advocated for victims of gender-based violence in our 6th annual appearance at Walk A Mile in their Shoes, an event that provides education and awareness, highlights the challenges victims face and the support they need, and provides an opportunity for participants to show their support by walking a mile together, united.
- Coordinated & Implemented our 3rd Annual Toy Drive, benefiting the children and families accessing the African American Community Service Agency. With over 400 toys donated (doubling last year's contribution) we were able to elevate a family, and child's, holiday experience; alleviating the burden the holidays can bring to underserved community members.
- Throughout the week of collection, athletes were charged with marketing, promoting, and collecting the toys which included the execution of a holiday party in which the entry fee required a toy donation and involved sorting and counting the donations.
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