Sixteen hundred DePaul University volunteers will perform community service work at 67 sites across the city May 15 in a massive celebration of the university’s 100-year tradition of urban public service.

University students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends will participate in a range of Centennial Service Day activities at inner-city Catholic schools and senior citizen housing complexes all over Chicago. Clad in T-shirts bearing an image of the university’s namesake, St. Vincent de Paul, the volunteers will work on projects that include:

• Thirty DePaul student members of the Midwest Association of Hispanic Accountants will join 20 families in cleaning St. Joseph School, 4831 S. Hermitage Ave., and playing organized games with children.

• Twenty volunteers will help senior citizens plant a garden at the Flannery Apartments, 1507 N. Clybourn Ave. The complex was the scene of a natural gas explosion Oct. 31 that heavily damaged one building and destroyed the gardening tools used by residents to create the complex’s award-winning garden. New tools have been donated by the Chicago Park District and a local school has donated the plants.

• A muddy lot behind the St. Michael’s School, 8131 S. Shore Dr., will be transformed into a playground and park by 20 DePaul volunteers working with 70 parents. Playground equipment will be erected, flowers and bushes planted and park benches constructed. St. Michael’s is one of 60 inner-city schools supported by the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese Big Shoulder’s Fund that will receive needed service from DePaul volunteers.

• Twenty volunteers will paint a 30-by-40 foot map of the world on a playground, plant flowers and clean the grounds at the St. James School, 2929 S. Wabash Ave.

• At the largest project, 140 law students will paint common areas on all floors of the CHA senior housing complex at 655 W. 65^th St. Because of tight maintenance budgets many CHA senior buildings have not received fresh paint in a decade.

Centennial Service Day and the university’s upcoming commencement mark the close of DePaul’s Centennial Celebration, a yearlong series of public events commemorating the university’s 100th anniversary. Community service is one of the university’s founding principles.

"In thinking about how to end this special year, the planning committees wanted something that was typically DePaul," said Tom Fuechtmann, director of the Centennial Office, which is coordinating the event. "Centennial Service Day celebrates our 100-year tradition of community partnership and service to the less fortunate."

The service event will begin with two volunteer rallies at 8:30 a.m. at the DePaul Center, 1 E. Jackson Blvd., and on the Lincoln Park Campus at Alumni Hall, 1011 W. Belden Ave. At 9:15 a.m., volunteer teams will board 19 buses at the Loop Campus and 30 at the Lincoln Park Campus to head to their service sites. After an onsite orientation, most teams will get to work between 10 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.

The day will end with a picnic beginning at 3 p.m. on the Lincoln Park Campus quadrangle, Seminary and Fullerton avenues. Music will be provided by the School of Music at DePaul.

"Centennial Service Day is a statement DePaul is making to ourselves, the city of Chicago and to the nation," said Richard J. Meister, executive vice president of academic affairs. "This day symbolizes what DePaul is about today and what we will be about for the next 100 years."