TCU LEAPS will celebrate 10 years of service in the Fort Worth community Saturday. Since April 2000, students have dedicated a day of their schedules to volunteer at food banks, parks and other locations around the Metroplex.

However, planning for LEAPS, and the nature of the event, has changed over the past decade, Mary Kathleen Baldwin, assistant director of the Center for Community Involvement and Service-Learning, said.

“I feel like there was a lot more staff involvement then, and it’s transitioned into student involvement,” Baldwin said.

There is a student-run executive committee for TCU LEAPS, as well as student team leaders for each group of volunteers.

Yajing Yang, a sophomore business major and LEAPS team leader, said previous experience prompted her to get involved again this year.

“To see many people work on the same projects together is kind of encouraging. Lots of people are making efforts to make something better,” Yang said.

LEAPS executive committee member and senior accounting major John Byrom has participated in improvement efforts, like those Yang referenced, in the past.

“One year I was a team leader at a YMCA and I was thinking we’d work with kids or something, but we were painting,” Byrom said. “It just made me think of how many people I was affecting by painting the walls at YMCA.”

Baldwin said Byrom’s efforts, along with the efforts of about 6,000 students, alumni and faculty and staff members, have positively impacted the community for the past 10 years.

To celebrate the 10-year anniversary, TCU alumus and Fort Worth City Councilman Jungus Jordan will give a speech in the Campus Commons at 12:15 p.m.