Yoni Litwok '07 is prepared to answer your call-even if it comes at 3 a.m. on a Monday morning.A Brandeis Emergency Medical Corp volunteer, Litwok is trained to respond to a range of emergency situations. When on call, Litwok said he's ready to react immediately to any medical problem.

"Anytime they call you during [a 24-hour shift], you have to respond," he said.

Litwok is one of countless students at Brandeis who dedicate a substantial amount of their time each week to volunteer work.

According to an Oct. 16 article in The Seattle Times, approximately one-third of college students are involved in volunteer organizations. In the past three years, the number of student volunteers nationwide grew 20 percent, the article reported.

Dianne Hannah, the community service director at Brandeis, said that over the past 15 years Brandeis students have demonstrated an overall "sustained level of volunteerism." Brandeis boasts both a large number and a wide variety of service organizations, including a recycling group, a counseling hotline and a group dedicated to peer education about substance abuse.

The Waltham Group, founded in 1966, is the school's largest and perhaps best-known volunteer organization. The Waltham Group provides an umbrella for groups that tackle hunger and homelessness. It also provides a tutoring and mentoring program for underprivileged youth, known as Big Siblings, as well as companionship to the elderly, among other programs.

The variety of community service programs at Brandeis is "determined by the needs of the community," Hannan said. This year the environmental movement at Brandeis is growing stronger, as students become more concerned with pressing issues like global warming and join clubs such as Students for Environmental Action, Hannan said.

While many students take on leadership positions in volunteer organizations or volunteer consistently with one organization, others prefer to dabble in one-time volunteer events. Mitzvah Corps is a Brandeis volunteer organization that holds fundraisers for charities and hosts community service events. Co-president Lindsey Saunders '07 said involvement in Mitzvah Corps is "not a time commitment if you don't want it to be." Students can participate in one-time events such as building a sukkah or visiting a women's shelter.

One unique volunteer organization on campus is Volunteer Vacations, which organizes one or two community service-based trips for around 15 students each spring break. Even student volunteers who are not organization coordinators can be very involved in the organization, coordinator Aliza Krevolin '07 said. "We like to have everybody take on roles when we go on the trips," Krevolin said.

Club administrators allot significant amounts of time to organizing events and activities. Kendra Harrison '07, an English as a Second Language Learning Initiative Coordinator, dedicates about five hours per week to supervising students who tutor employees at Sherman dining hall. Administrative activities also keep community service club leaders busy. Shelley Regev '07, co-president of Mitzvah Corps, said "figuring out the logistics to see if [events are] possible" is extremely time-consuming.

Many Brandeis first-years said volunteering in high school influenced their involvement in service work at Brandeis, while others simply learned the value of volunteer work from their families. During her senior year of high school, Regev worked with autistic children.

Krevolin, who describes community service as "fundamental to [her] being," said her family has "always put emphasis on giving back to the community." Every Christmas Krevolin's family visits a hospital; sometimes her father even dresses up as Santa Claus to cheer up patients.

At Brandeis and nationwide, female college students are more likely to be volunteers than their male peers. According to The Seattle Times, 33 percent of female college students do volunteer work compared to 27 percent of males. Krevolin said she has noticed that "most of [the coordinators] are female."

Recently, however, a greater number of male students have been volunteering at Brandeis, Hannan said, and that while community service programs have traditionally been "female-dominated," the ratio of men to women is becoming less disparate. Some organizations, such as the Big Siblings and the tutoring programs under Waltham Group, increasingly rely on male volunteers in order to match children with mentors or tutors of the same gender.

After dedicating so much of their time to community service, it would seem student volunteers would find little time left for schoolwork. Yet many volunteers claim that doing community service activities helps them improve their time-management skills. Volunteering, Harrison said, forces her to be "more productive with whatever time [she has]."

Harrison also found inspiration through her experience as a volunteer. She said that working as a Spanish tutor in high school sparked her interest in learning about language acquisition in college, and inspired her to volunteer in the ESL program at Brandeis.

Students said they look forward to the positive emotions volunteering conjurs. "I love that feeling of helping people," Saunders. Regev said she has stayed active in Mitzvah Corps because it is "fulfilling to be involved."

"It's a matter of priorities," said Kristyn Lascoe '07, co-president of Volunteer Vacations. Harrison said volunteering can be stressful, but "making a difference in whatever way you can" ultimately "pays off.