This post was updated Oct.12 at 9:26 p.m.

Around 1,300 baby blue shirts reading “Bruins Give Back” dotted Los Angeles on Sept. 27.

Students, alumni and community members sporting said shirts participated in UCLA’s 17th annual Volunteer Day around the city, hosted by the UCLA Volunteer Center and the Undergraduate Students Association Council’s Community Service Commission.

Volunteers, who were stationed at 45 different sites across the city, spent their mornings tending to community gardens, sorting through donated clothing, serving food to people experiencing homelessness and cleaning headstones of fallen veterans. Some began their day with Chancellor Julio Frenk at the event’s kickoff rally in Bruin Plaza.

Edison Chua, USAC’s Community Service Commissioner, said his office’s main role in planning the event was to encourage student involvement. He added that his team also provided site leaders and facilitated some of the activities, including a post-volunteering reflection assignment.

“The entire activity was actually designed by CSC to ensure that when volunteers went down, they went beyond just the physical contribution and actions,” Chua said. “They thought a little bit more about the values that they were showing and the deeper meaning of all their actions.”

The service conducted at Volunteer Day was estimated to be worth $9.5 million, according to a UCLA press release. Chua said CSC and USAC did not contribute to the event’s funding, but members from his office were spread throughout various sites on Volunteer Day.

“It’s important for us to just be involved in the broader LA community in whatever capacity we can be a part of,” Chua said. “It’s good to be aware of what the LA community is going through, like some of the issues that they might be facing, and to just plan ahead wherever we can, especially if we have the resources.”

Students participating at some off-campus sites were provided with bus transportation from UCLA, while other sites were located on campus – such as the Jane B. Semel HCI Community Garden.

Grace Gallego and Katie Chang, site leaders and garden coordinators for the Semel HCI center, said volunteers at the community garden transported eucalyptus scraps and cleared the orchard as part of a larger soil revitalization project.

“We always need the hands,” said Gallego, a third-year public affairs student. “We’re a small team of undergrads doing a lot of manual labor, so it’s nice to get more people in here to haul eucalyptus.”

Chang, a second-year anthropology and public affairs student, said Volunteer Day is a great way for people to learn about the community garden and its purpose – especially given that it is the start of the school year.

“This garden space facilitates the connection between the environment and food, connecting with each other, connecting with what we grow with, what we eat with, how we live,” Gallego said. “A lot of people come together up here.”

Gallego added that the garden created an environment for easy socialization and connection, especially since the majority of volunteers were first-year graduate students at the Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Jake Yelvington, a third-year public affairs student, said participating in Volunteer Day at the garden was not only good for the environment but also helped him and other students “get in touch with their soul” through giving back.

“It just feels good to be a part of a community,” he said. “And you’re not a part of a community unless you do something.”

Chua expressed a similar belief in the value of community volunteering.

“It is a meaningful act to help others wherever we can, and I think doing so with other people could potentially help them to form friendships here and there,” he said.