Welcome from Rhona McCormack

Dear Student Volunteers, 

University of Limerick’s President’s Volunteer Award (PVA) programme is a unique and celebrated aspect of the UL student experience. In 2024 618 UL students are being awarded a PVA. This figure represents over 36,824 volunteer hours during the academic year, engagement with 1,539 volunteer opportunities, and represents an overall total of 5,148 PVA Awards since the inception of this important initiative in 2011. These recognitions, year on year, represent a meaningful engagement by UL students with our local and international communities and represent experiences that go to the heart of what it means to be a UL student.

The development and growth of the PVA programme over the past year has been ably led by Linda Fitzgerald and Nichola Keegan in UL’s Student Volunteering Office (SVO) and I would also like to acknowledge the valuable contributions of Nessa Madden and Aoibhin Sinnott to the SVO’s work during 2023-24. Volunteering and PVA activity in UL is also enabled by multiple partners and stakeholders: our colleagues in UL Student Life, UL Postgraduate Students' Union, UL Alumni, Student Affairs and across all of UL’s professional support services and academic departments, at national level by Student Volunteer Ireland, led by Dr Lorraine Tansey, and most importantly our community partners and organisations throughout Ireland and beyond.

Year on year, UL’s students wholeheartedly embrace the ethos and spirit of volunteerism. I wish all of UL’s PVA recipients this year sincerest congratulations for keeping the spirit of volunteering alive and well. I encourage you to strengthen that energy, passion and commitment for volunteering as you take the next steps on your life journey, be that here in UL or as a graduate. You are ambassadors, leaders and true community citizens.

Comhgháirdeas ó chroí

Rhona McCormack

Director, Student Affair.