One Union student group that makes a difference was honored by the city of Schenectady shortly before this year's commencement.
The group, We-Care-About-U-Schenectady, has played as big role in improving the city's housing stock. A group called Better Neighborhoods, Inc., uses paid contractors and volunteers, such as the Union students, to restore houses whose owners have walked away from them. Nine houses in the city have become known as “Union College houses” because the work was done primarily by Union students.
About forty percent of the College's students do some kind of community service each year, from acting as Big Brothers and Big Sisters to tending the
ill and injured with a local ambulance squad.