York students awarded for their outstanding contributions to the community

Posted on Wednesday 21 May 2025

York students support a wide range of projects, including helping address inequalities in health and wellbeing, homelessness, loneliness and helping to close the educational attainment gap for young people struggling to achieve their potential. 

Guildhall

In 2023-2024, more than 2,000 University of York students gave nearly 78,363 hours of their time to volunteering and community engaged activities within the City of York, equating to £896,473 if they were paid the national living wage.

The students, who attended an awards ceremony earlier this month at The Guildhall, were nominated by 21 diverse host organisations from across York, reflecting the variety of skills and general enthusiasm the University’s students bring to the community. 

The ceremony was hosted by Professor Matt Matravers, Chair of the University’s Community Volunteering Committee and BBC Radio York’s Elly Fiorentini. The Sheriff of York, Councillor Fiona Fitzpatrick also attended the awards along with the University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Charlie Jeffery. 

The Shelter Support Group was nominated by a number of Homelessness Services across York for support with fundraising and awareness. 

This year as part of their ‘giving trees’ initiative they provided every resident with a Christmas present at a time when people are particularly vulnerable.

Rewarding

Psychology graduate, Emily, volunteered as part of the NHS Foundation Trust Sports Project, which engages service users of a low secure forensic mental health unit to participate in sports and exercise sessions. 

Emily said: “The experience was really rewarding, seeing the service users starting to trust the volunteers and the sessions going from one or two attending to a whole group by the end of the project with a bit of competitiveness too when staff got involved!”

It was noted that more and more students are now making an impact in the community through opportunities in the University’s curriculum, and this was reflected by the number of project groups being celebrated at the awards. 

Over 500 students were engaged in Community Engaged Learning opportunities within the curriculum this year, with the aim of expanding this still further next year across all three academic faculties.

Community

Chair of the University’s Community Volunteering Committee, Professor Matt Matravers, said: “University of York students have an impressive and longstanding tradition of volunteering and participating in community engaged activities and we are delighted by the numbers of students that continue to give their time to support the wider community. 

“The University is, as always, immensely proud of the contribution our students make to the City of York and beyond”.