It seems like the Binghamton University population is in an extra-charitable mood of late. Throughout the past two or three issues, you can find examples of it all around: Relay for Life brought in $90,000 for cancer research. Casino in the Woods allowed students to gamble to benefit an ill University employee; Habitat for Humanity built a house; some charity benefits usually every time there’s a date auction or a fashion show.

It’s heart-warming to see all this very public organized charity. But don’t let the publicity and attraction of the big charity events fool you into thinking that the spirit of giving is seasonal: there’s selfless, important work going on every single day here in the Tri-Cities area, and there’s more yet that needs to be done.

And it needs you.

Student groups on campus (and nonprofits close by, too) are working on long-term campaigns of helping the children and the less fortunate of the Southern Tier. But the only time they get noticed — and sadly, that’s how the business works — is when they have a grand-finale blockbuster semester capstone event. Nobody’s there along the way to report on the individual lives touched by community outreach, and it’s often forgotten about.

To the Bearcats already volunteering, we give our kudos — but you already knew you were doing the right thing. For the rest of us, though, it’s time to get involved.

There are a million things you can do. Volunteer in a soup kitchen. Get involved with JUMP Nation. Join NYPIRG’s hunger and homeless outreach project. Be a mentor for local kids with GEAR-Up. Volunteer at the campus preschool and early Childhood Center. Be a phone counselor at High Hopes’s secret location. Or even become a Harpur’s Ferry EMT: they did win an award, you know.

And if altruism isn’t for you — say, you’re one of those hard-core libertarians who scoff the concept of charity as “against the way of things” — you can still do it to meet new people and see things you’d otherwise never get a chance to. You only go to college once, so why not make as many diverse memories as possible? And who knows — maybe your soul mate will be that cute tax-and-spend Democrat you ladled with at the soup kitchen.

Of course, if your pathetic, blackened little heart can’t be bothered with enriching itself or others through a few selfless deeds, keep in mind: volunteering sure is great for those grad school applications, too.