On Saturday, students and staff were everywhere downtown, braving the rain to solicit donations on street corners, and engaging in hands-on work placements at social work agencies, as two big community service events coincided on U of T’s St. George campus.

Toting bags and data sheets, a group of 30 international students combed Ward’s Island Beach for nearly three hours. They were taking part in Outreach 2006, U of T’s first yearly day of service work-though it was more like a half-day’s work.

Three-hundred-odd volunteers turned out at back campus at 10 a.m. to sign in before being dispatched to their respective placements. The group of international students reached the island at 11 a.m., and were initially met with confusion when their contact person did not show up.

“Whoever arranged this never touched base with us,” said a parks employee the group approached for help. Eventually, the students were bussed to the proper place aboard a chartered TTC bus, arriving there around noon. They combed through about 300 metres of shoreline, retrieving six bags of bottles, cans, and cigarette butts by 2 p.m.

Also doing their bit for the community on Saturday were the frosh of University College (UC). Their Shinerama event was raising money for the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CCFF).

“Put a straw into your mouth and breathe through it,” said CCFF spokesperson Jennifer Zolis. “That’s what it’s like to live with CF.” The average person living with CF ingests 40 pills a day, which include enzymes to help the body digest and absorb foods.

The average life expectancy for a CF sufferer is only 37 years.

After a speech by Zolis, groups from UC headed out to different locations around the city to collect donations. The Faculty of Music also joined in the effort this year, playing selections from their repertoire to attract the public.

As for other fundraising tactics and techniques, many were quite original. Frosh spun plates, juggled, coined Shinerama cheers, and performed choreographed dances.

One tactic was a car wash held in the CIUT parking lot on St. George Street. Yet despite their best intentions, the current construction on the road stopped many cars from passing through, so that only two cars had been washed an hour into the afternoon. The frosh, however, were unrelenting, waving a “dirty car = dirty conscience” sign at the traffic on Harbord and Hoskin Streets.

Last year was the first year University College participated in Shinerama, which initially began as a shoe-shining fundraiser in 1964.

“We thought, if other smaller schools can be raising [hundreds of thousands of dollars], and we have so many more students, we should be doing more,” said Shinerama organizer Lucas Castellani.

UC frosh executives decided to add the event as a formal part of frosh week this year, and they set their goal at $10,000. University College Literary and Athletic Society president George Mastoras even offered to have his entire body waxed if they made it to $12,000.

While they did not quite reach their goal, the unofficial estimate of funds raised sits at $8,000, double the amount raised in 2005. Mastoras’s body hair is safe for now.