Stephanie Owen Receives Service Award at La Salle University

Philadelphia -- When the grind of every day life gets to Stephanie Owen, she adds, not reduces, her workload by helping others.

“Community service projects are a great way to take a step back and help, and to be grateful for everything that you have and the things you are capable of doing,” says Owen, a La Salle University student athlete and recipient of the Psychology Department’s Service Award for a senior.

The Burlington, Wisconsin resident is very familiar with community service. At Burlington High School, she completed the required 40 hours of service before the end of her freshman year.

“I was honestly very surprised that I had won the Psychology Service Award,” said Owen, who is attending La Salle on a volleyball scholarship.

Owen and her teammates look forward to participating in various service projects each year, including volleyball clinics and neighborhood clean-ups.

Another experience was a visit to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to distribute toys that were collected by the Student Athlete Advisory Council (SAAC) at La Salle. “It was a fantastic experience,” she said. “The parents were incredibly grateful that we were trying to help.” 

She is also active in the Atlantic 10 Conference’s SAAC as a La Salle representative. Through this organization, she and student representatives from other area universities visited Inglis House, which provides programs and services to aid people with physical disabilities. They spent the day with the people there making Valentine’s Day Cards.

“It was very interesting for me to be in this type of environment and seeing first hand many of the things that I had learned about in class and hoped to be working with in the future through occupational therapy,” said Owen, who was accepted into the University of St. Louis’ Occupational Therapy master’s program.