Every year in April, the NCAA celebrates Division III Week, a time for student-athletes at DIII institutions to showcase their pride in athletics while helping their communities.
The North Coast Athletic Conference has a conference-wide Student-Athlete Advisory Committee that decides how NCAC schools will help their communities. While in years past the schools competed in a “change war” to raise money, the NCAC decided to go another route in an effort to create a broader impact during 2025’s DIII Week, which ran from April 6–13.
‘“The NCAC shifted gears a little bit and chose to record student engagement in a different way, and that’s [through] our community engagement,” third-year Jillian Jendsen, Oberlin Student-Athlete Advisory Committee’s PR and communications officer, said. “So not only are we reporting how much money we’re raising, because that’s still a very important component, we’re also recording how many students are participating and in what ways.”
In an effort to maximize community engagement, Oberlin’s SAAC partnered with Oberlin Community Services, “a responsive community-based organization that serves low-income and vulnerable community members by providing food, financial assistance, referrals, educational outreach, and other basic needs” according to their website.
Student-athletes ran food drives for OCS at each home sporting event during the week. Additionally, a few student-athletes took time out of their weeks to go to OCS directly and assist in stocking the food pantry and gardening.
DIII Week was nowhere near the first time Oberlin student-athletes have helped out at Oberlin Community Services. In the past, members of various teams have helped with gardening, in the food pantry, and moving OCS’ operations from their old facility into the new one. Some student-athletes, including men’s tennis’ Oliver Knijnenburg, volunteer regularly.
Volunteers are critical to the success of OCS, said Rosa Gadsden, OCS’ Outreach and Volunteer Coordinator.
“We only have an actual staff of about eight, but at any given time, we need about 10-plus people to run food distribution, which is three days a week, five people to help with getting our truck in and putting everything into the warehouse,” Gadsden said. “Out of those eight people on staff, three of them have nothing to do with the pantry.”
Each day of DIII Week featured various events outside of community engagement. Monday’s event was one of the biggest hits of the week, as athletes got the opportunity to pie their coaches with whipped cream in the Science Center, in exchange for a small donation to OCS.
“I think we had like 50 or more people participate in Pie Your Coaches, and we raised [about $250] for OCS through that event,” Lucy Lee, SAAC secretary and College fourth-year, said.
Tuesday was Student and Staff Appreciation Day, for which SAAC provided coffee and donuts and gave third- and fourth-year athletes their varsity jackets. Coaches got involved further on Wednesday as they became students once again for Take Your Coach to Class Day.
Oberlin’s SAAC has long been a champion of identity groups in athletics, and dedicated Thursday to the many athlete identity groups, including the Black Student Athlete Group, the Asian Student Athlete Group, the Jewish Student Athlete Group, Oberlin’s Athlete Ally, and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. These groups each got the opportunity to take over the NCAC Instagram account and showcase their organization.
Friday’s therapy goat visit was supposed to be the highlight of the week, but due to weather conditions the event was rescheduled.
On Saturday, the women’s volleyball team hosted the Special Olympics Volleyball Showcase, which brought together three Special Olympics volleyball teams, Oberlin women’s varsity volleyball team, and some members of the club volleyball team. The showcase started with a skills workshop with the varsity and club players and was followed by matches between the Special Olympics teams themselves. The last event of the day — a scrimmage that combines the Special Olympics teams and Oberlin players — is always the team’s favorite event.
“Every year [the showcase] is the volleyball team’s passion project,” Jendsen said. “So it’s very near and dear to my heart.”
The last event of DIII Week was “Play Like A Girl,” during which young girls from the Oberlin community get to come and try out all of the sports that are offered for women’s varsity athletes at Oberlin.
Jendsen was thrilled at the turnout at each of the events for DIII Week this year, and credited the attitude of the SAAC board and Oberlin Athletics community for a successful week.
“I the executive board of SAAC is so clearly enthusiastic about the work that we do, I think our peers and our friends really take up that enthusiasm in a way that’s always really heartwarming and special,” Jendsen said. “I’ve really seen an uptick of D3 pride, which is really exciting.”
