Road rally formed to give students active role

This Saturday the Extreme Road Rally is rolling into town, and it isn't the first time. For three years now an organization run through the School of Public and Environmental Affairs called "Students Taking Active Roles Today" has organized this event as a way to get people, mostly students, to see what volunteer opportunities are available in the local area. \n"This event gets students exposed to the community and allows them to do good work in a fun way that is also competitive," said Denise Wessels, S.T.A.R.T. coordinator. \nWessels said the idea behind Extreme Road Rally, or XR2, is that teams of about four or five people join together and drive around Bloomington, making donations and performing various community service activities to gain points. This year there are 10 different teams competing. Each team is assigned some type of required activity they must complete in an hour and a half. Some of this year's activities include flower seed repackaging at the Wylie House, cleaning and shelving at the Monroe County Library, and cleaning and helping the kitchen staff at the Helene G. Simone Hillel Center. \nAfter these required activities, they are free to pick and choose any flexible or "flex" activity they wish. These activities last for various lengths of time, but are much shorter than the required activity. Some examples of these "flex" activities include donating clothes to goodwill, recycling cans and bottles, donating food to the Hoosier Hills Food Bank and cheering on youths playing basketball at the Banneker Community Center. For each activity it completes, the team is awarded a certain amount of points. The three teams with the highest points are then awarded prizes that have been donated by local Bloomington businesses. The event lasts about three hours and ends with a pizza party.\n"The rally offers the typical format for volunteer activities, but I think that it works because you do get exposed to so many different things," said two year participant, senior Laura Neumeister.\nS.T.A.R.T. is mainly comprised of graduate students with a small number of undergraduate students. Neumeister is one of the few undergraduate students involved in this organization, and this year she actively helped organize different activities and acquire donations from local businesses. All of the money that is collected this year from the Extreme Road Rally will be donated to the Amethyst House, Middle Way House and Shelter, Inc. \nLast year the organization donated over $300, as well as 940 pounds of clothing, 3 sets of skis and a 32 inch television to goodwill, 300 cans to the food bank, an enormous amount of recyclables to the recycling center, cleaning supplies to Shelter, Inc., and dog food to the Humane Society. Overall, participants performed 150 hours of community service in the City of Bloomington. \nThe Extreme Road Rally was created almost three years ago by two former graduate students, Helena Miller and Jenn Hanink. S.T.A.R.T. had been around for quite some time but started to fade after awhile. Almost three years ago Miller and Hanink took charge and revived it. Miller said they wanted to do something big as a kind of publicity for the organization that would help people learn more about it and be more interested in helping the community. \nBecause of their hard work and groundbreaking idea, this will be the third Extreme Road Rally to date. Miller said the first rally raised somewhere between $100 and $150. With last year's amount being significantly higher, she expects this year's event will raise even more money.