This post was updated Oct. 23 at 11:17 p.m.

Hundreds of students attended the Servocacy Fest on Oct. 2 in Wilson Plaza, which gave students a look into on-campus organizations serving the community at UCLA and beyond.

The event was hosted by the Community Service Commission of the Undergraduate Students Association Council. Nearly 50 service-based organizations tabled at the fourth annual event.

Soee Park, a CSC internal programs co-director, said the Servocacy Fest is a smaller and more intentional version of the Enormous Activities Fair – a week zero event that hosts over 500 general student organizations and departments that advertise themselves to students.

[Related: Enormous Activities Fair presents over 500 student organizations, departments]

Park, a second-year neuroscience student, added that the fest has a direct focus on service, providing students with an opportunity to explore clubs and organizations that make a positive impact at UCLA and in the larger community.

“It is like EAF, in a sense, that it’s informational, but it’s different from EAF in that it’s interactive,” Park said. “We are requiring all the orgs to come up with interactive activities through which the students can engage in the social issues that they’re interested in.”

Rebecca Kassab, the Central Valley Project site coordinator, said the event provides her organization the space to find students who are passionate about making an impact. Kassab added that the CVP works to encourage students from the Central Valley community to apply for college – a region of California with some of the lowest college enrollment rates.

“We were in those kids’ positions one day, and we didn’t know about college,” she said. “We didn’t know anything about it, we didn’t have clubs at our school, we didn’t have many APs, we had a very low chance of getting into these colleges. We know what it is to feel like you can’t make it and actually make it.”

Kassab said that events like Servocacy Fest help promote the club and its fall recruitment efforts, which directly support their outreach projects in the Central Valley and at UCLA.

Dulcerina Peñasales, a third-year political science student, said she was able to learn more about the service clubs she was interested in through attending the event – like Swipe Out Hunger, an organization focused on ending college student hunger – and a literacy organization that works in Little Tokyo. Peñasales added that as a new transfer student, she was thankful to have the opportunity to learn about CSC and its mission.

“This is a way for people to get more involved on campus, even in the little, smaller things, and it’s also a way for people – especially transfer students – to meet others,” Peñasales said. “There’s just a lot of people looking to get more involved, and this is just a way to dip your toes in how much UCLA has to offer.”

Sabah Alidina, a CSC internal programs co-director, said the event was intended to cater to specific student interests through its thematic structure, with topics including public health, education youth support, justice advocacy, environment, food/housing and a catch-all category.

“By organizing orgs by specific themes, students have the opportunity to investigate themes that are more tailored towards them,” said Alidina, a second-year education and social transformation and Spanish student. “So we’re hoping that by the end of the day, each student walks away with at least one opportunity that they’re interested in applying in.”

The event also featured Salpicon – an acai bowl and smoothie food truck that is periodically available at night on the Hill – and gave attendees the opportunity to win a free acai bowl if they visited all the necessary organization stations and filled out a stamp card handed out by CSC.

Edison Chua, the Community Service commissioner, said CSC paid for Salpicon to come to the event, but declined to comment on the event’s cost.

Park added that CSC and its events seek to amplify the value of service and help connect students to organizations where they can create important change in their community.

“The Community Service Commission is definitely a bridge between the service orgs and the world beyond,” Park said. “Our mission as an org is to support all the orgs to achieve their goals and missions.”