By Monty Siekerman
About 300 ONU incoming students and staff participated in ACE Day by volunteering their labor throughout Ada and surrounding communities for two hours on Saturday morning.

Ada Community Engagement Day occurs annually each fall on weekend before classes begin.

The program is designed to engage incoming students with their college home and provide opportunities for ONU’s first-year students to contribute to the village and surrounding communities.They dig, they paint, they collect items for the Food Pantry, and more.

Photo: Working in a garden at the home of retired electrical engineering professor Les Thede are (from left) freshmen Makaiah Thomas and Seth Pertuset, and upper class pharmacy student Oshra Gadkar.