For ten years COD Cares, the College’s volunteer corps, has actively supported our neighbors, working with local businesses and non-profit organizations while fostering a culture of service among College employees, students and community members.
We proudly continue the tradition of service as we look forward to planting more gardens, preparing new transitional housing units, collecting clothing and food for those in need and sharing our time and energy with the community that so graciously supports our educational mission because COD Cares!
Sleep Out Saturday: One Night Outside to Transform Lives
6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 2
Culinary and Hospitality Center North Lot
For more than 25 years, Bridge Communities’ Sleep Out Saturday volunteers have raise awareness and funds to help families sleep safely in their Bridge home. Join Bridge Communities and COD Cares at the Sleep Out Saturday Kickoff Rally.
Enjoy soup crafted by COD culinary students, live entertainment and inspirational messages from guest speaker Diane Nilan, family homelessness advocate and author of "The Three Melissas" and past Bridge clients.
Discover how you can ensure that everyone has a place to call home.
- Spend one night outside and support families facing homelessness. By giving up your bed, you stand with those in need. Register to sleep out in your yard, your car or inside on the floor.
- Volunteer to set up, serve soup or run games at the Kickoff. Sign up as an individual or bring your friends.
- Do both!
Roll Up Your Sleeves 2024
From making paper and keeping COD’s prairie clean, to donating blood and recycling plastic water bottles into Chihuly-inspired art, COD Cares volunteers gave back in a big way both in and out of the classroom during annual service days. View photos from this year's activities.
Key activities included:
- SCARCE Learn and Lend a Hand – COD Biology Professor Melanie Robinson and 15 students helped SCARCE volunteers make paper from recycled material.
- Northern Illinois Food Bank Mobile Market – Eighteen volunteers packed and distributed groceries to more than 120 families.
- Repurposed Art Project – More than 40 students, faculty and staff turned plastic water bottles in colorful, Chihuly-inspired art.
- Prairie Workday – Eighteen students and staff cleared invasive species from COD’s Ecological Study Areas.
- Sustainable Design Challenge – Architecture Mark Pearson judged the annual Sustainable Design Challenge, featuring designs from DuPage County high school student teams.
- Spring Blood Drive – Spearheaded by COD’s ADN students and health career clubs, 61 donors gave 54 units of blood, saving up to 162 lives.
- Feed My Starving Children – Twenty-three students and staff packed 77 boxes with 16,632 nutritious meals for children in the Dominican Republic, providing 46 children one meal daily for an entire year.
Gift of Giving 2023
Gnome-body Does it Better
COD Community, you outdid yourselves! Check out the 2023 Gift of Giving photo album.
Contact Information
Joan DiPiero
Community Engagement Coordinator
(630) 942-3872
Email: dipieroj@cod.edu