By Sarah Leskovec

Don’t miss your opportunity to participate in the fourth annual NIRSA Foundation Community Service Project at the 2014 NIRSA Annual Conference & Sports Recreational Expo!

This pre-conference event, held on Wednesday, April 23, offers the perfect chance to enact NIRSA’s value of service.

Get a head start on NIRSA 2014’s “harmonizing our values” theme, and start your Nashville experience on a high note!

This year, the NIRSA Foundation is collaborating with Open Table Nashville, a non-profit, interfaith organization that works to disrupt the cycle of poverty and provides education about issues on homelessness.

This inspirational organization began after the Nashville flood of May 2010. “A small group of us responded like any of us would to our neighbors in need,” says Ingrid McIntyre, Executive Director. “Pretty soon Open Table Nashville had emerged from the waters—literally.” As for the name, Open Table, McIntyre says it means “a place where everyone is welcome. The table is never too full and there’s always an open seat.” She jokes, “I guess we could have called it ‘Available Chair,’ but that didn’t have the same ring.”

Recently, Anderson Cooper and the crew of 60 Minutes spent some time with the staff of Open Table Nashville to learn about their role as advocates for the Nashville homeless. If you missed it, check out the video below and see for yourself the people Open Table Nashville works to help.

The story, which aired Sunday, February 9, transformed Cooper’s view of homelessness. “We all have support networks,” he said. “These are people who have burned through those support networks. And that’s really the only difference.”

“Anderson’s response was amazing,” Ingrid says. “I think he was able to see what we see every day. These are people who have names and stories, not just people to ignore, avoid, and forget… Poverty and homelessness are symptoms of a broken system. My hope is that we can see these inequalities and start building systems and making decisions that respond to our society as a whole.”

And that kind of response is what makes Open Table Nashville a great fit for NIRSA members. Both organizations “are working on very similar issues that our communities face, just on different platforms,” Ingrid says. “The values of leadership, sustainability, health, wellbeing, equity, diversity, inclusion and service are essential to the work both of us do, [and] they are attributes all of us need to thrive.”

Participants in the NIRSA Foundation Community Service Project will get “a taste of what is needed in every community,” Ingrid says. “Maybe this experience will be a springboard to learning about opportunities in your own community that certainly exist—and, if they don’t, maybe you’ll be inspired to start the conversation.”

Registration deadline for the Community Service Project is March 12—also the last day to take advantage of early-bird pricing for NIRSA 2014—so be sure to add this to you conference registration. If you have already registered for the NIRSA Annual Conference, you can submit a Registration Addendum to add this meaningful pre-conference event to your Nashville experience.