ATLANTA - App State Athletics was named the 2024-25 Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) Community Impact Award recipient, the league announced at the Sun Belt Honors Banquet on Thursday.
The award recognizes the impact that student-athletes have within their communities on a local and global scale and encourages student-athletes to actively participate in community service. Individuals, teams and institutions are eligible for the honor, and each institution selects and submits a single nomination annually.
In the wake of Hurricane Helene, the Mountaineers showed resilience and strength, banding together to help the Boone community and beyond. Within the first month of recovery efforts, App State student-athletes logged 1,648 hours of community service with an economic impact of $58,000, assisting with approximately 905 different service commitments and supporting 50 organizations.
Alongside the student-athletes' efforts, the App State Athletics Department opened the Holmes Convocation Center as a shelter for those displaced by the storm, fed those in need with food in stock from the department until the Red Cross arrived and coordinated a shuttle to help transport people to use the Mark E. Ricks Athletics Complex to use its locker room facilities.
Beyond the initial cleanup, the Mountaineers wrote thank-you notes to linemen, EMS and first responders throughout the year and welcomed local children back to school once the schools reopened. Additionally, some student-athletes traveled with Samaritan's Purse and similar organizations to help rebuild homes within the High Country.
Over the course of the 2024-25 academic year, the Mountaineers logged 3,355 hours of community service with a projected economic impact of $117,000, supporting nearly 100 organizations.
App State was also recognized with the student-athlete graduation success rate award, which is bestowed upon any Sun Belt member institution that has a single-year graduation success rate at or above 90 percent for student-athletes, as published in the NCAA Division I Graduation Success Rate report.
