Grand Valley State University students headed downtown on Friday, Oct. 2 for this year’s first overnight service trip.

Students traveled to Grand Rapids to spend the day getting to know their peers, as well as learning about community engagement before they went to work on their projects on Saturday.

This year, the community partner was the Blandford Nature Center.

Nicole Wilson, a graduate assistant of leadership development and civic engagement, said this trip consisted of path creation at the nature center. Students also worked with invasive species along a pond at the nature center.

Wilson led the trip alongside April Urbanowski, an upperclassman who serves as the service and leadership intern at the Office of Student Life.

The trip was originally proposed by the Community Service Learning Center in the fall of 2009. The first ever overnight service trip went out in April 2010. GVSU has held one of these nights a semester for every semester since then, and Wilson said every trip has been a success.

Wilson said the overnight service trip is important to engage students.

“This kind of involvement is essential in helping all GVSU students become active members of their community,” Wilson said.

She emphasized that the university is dedicated to civic engagement. GVSU displays interest in shaping student’s lives, professions and societies, as found in their mission statement. The mission statement makes it clear that public service is as important as scholarly and professional development.

“Students learned about being active members of the local and global community through the service project and learning about deeper social issues,” Wilson said.

Participating in opportunities like the overnight service trip provides students with essential skills that they can use in multiple areas of knowledge throughout the university, Wilson said.

Critical thinking and communication skills were also reinforced throughout the trip. Students were placed in leadership roles while understanding the importance of good citizenship and cultural competency.

“This trip encompasses all of the things I love: student development, civic engagement, leadership development, and I love being out in nature, too,” Wilson said.

While being in nature is one of Wilson’s favorite things about the trip, it can also be a challenge to head outside. She said weather can play a big role in the kinds of engagement students do: this trip was originally planned when it was sunny and warm outside, but the temperature has cooled off recently.

Since the overnight engagement trip is something that is done once a semester, students can already start thinking about their winter calendar. While the community partner is not set, students can expect for the winter semester overnight trip to happen Feb. 12 and 13.