Three-year member of SAAC currently serving as President for 2015-16

LAFAYETTE – Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns women’s basketball student-athlete Sylvana Okde has been named a recipient of the UL Dean of Community Service Excellence in Service Award.

Okde, a junior from Houston, Texas, has served as a representative to the UL Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) for three years and served as Vice President in 2014-15 and most recently as President in 2015-16. She has also served on the Community Service Committee to the Sun Belt Conference SAAC. As a part of UL SAAC, Okde has coordinated numerous project including Reading in Red, local hospital visits, shoe drives, canned food drives, and donation drives for the Faith House and the American Heart Association. As President of SAAC, she has helped lead her fellow student-athletes in volunteering over 3,000 hours and donating over $9,000 to charitable causes during the 2015-16 academic year.

The 20 students recognized with this award are all graduating seniors or graduate students and have verified 200&#434343434343; hours of University-based community service. These students have a combined total of more than 8,500 service hours. This represents an estimated $200,000 economic impact to the Lafayette community and an immeasurable impact on the area’s quality of life.