Gamecocks Giving Back

Members of the South Carolina Swimming and Diving team partnered with the local nonprofit, Serve and Connect and dropped off food at the USC Police Department as part of the organization’s Feed an Officer campaign.  Serve and Connect is a nonprofit with the mission of fostering positive change through sustainable police and community partnerships. Since 2015, the organization has provided more than 4,000 lunches to officers throughout the Midlands and over $20,000 in gift cards to local restaurants to off-duty officers.

The Gamecocks previously worked with Serve and Connect to pack groceries for members of the community in need as part of the Greg’s Groceries statewide packing event.

“We were packing 2,000 non-perishable boxes that police all across the Carolinas can take back with them to their agencies,” said Serve and Connect CEO and founder Kassy Alia Ray (2005-2009), a former Gamecock swim team captain who graduated in 2009 and later earned her PhD in 2019. “Then when they do things such as go on a welfare check or check on a homebound individual or a domestic violence victim who needs help getting back on their feet, or even a kid at a school where food insecurity is a challenge, they can provide that box of food and are able to help.”

“Kassy came and told us her story last year, and we want to increase our partnership even more this year,” said senior swimmer Meg Maholic, who is studying journalism and political science. “Greg’s Grocery packing event is something I went to last year with 10 of my teammates, and it’s really special. It feels like we’re really building something with Kassy and Serve and Connect as opposed to it being a one-time event.”

Alia Ray started the organization shortly after her husband Greg, a local policeman, was killed in the line of duty in 2015 in nearby Forest Acres.

“What we’re designed to do is support police and communities in working together to address public safety issues and build safe and thriving neighborhoods, through trust-building efforts, partnership development, and collaborative responses that help connect people in need to resources,” Alia Ray said. “Police alone can’t build safe neighborhoods. It takes police and communities working together.

“We’re trying to challenge the paradigm that it’s police versus community or us versus them. Our motto is ‘together, we are better.’ When we work together, we create better outcomes and futures for everybody.”

Serve and Connect and the South Carolina swim and dive team created the partnership more than a year ago when Coach Jeff Poppell had said he wanted to have his team more involved in the community.

“A lot of it is more special because of Kassy’s ties with the swim team, and that makes the volunteer work more meaningful,” Maholic said. “Each swimmer has a goal to do eight hours of community service each semester. Instead of it being something that you don’t have much of a personal connection to, we have built this relationship with Kassy and Serve and Connect, so we want to support her in her endeavors.”