Stephen Borutta, Hendrix College, Men's Cross Country

STEPHEN BORUTTA OF HENDRIX COLLEGE, a junior from Webster Groves, Mo., has been selected the SCAC Character & Community Male Student-Athlete-of-the-Week for the week ending September 25, 2011.

Borutta, along with four of his high school friends, started Ecogrease Lightning - a Missouri non-profit whose mission is to educate Americans about the benefits of using sustainable energy. To promote this initiative, he and his friends traveled around the country in a school bus converted to run on used vegetable oil.

Wanting to give back to the communities the group passed though on the bus tour, Borutta and his friends commited to 80 hours of service work per week for seven weeks. Half of that time was spent with Habitat for Humanity (because of the company's mission of offering affordable housing in a sustainable manner) and the other half was spent at local organizations trying to make friends and help out as best the group could.

This summer, however, the bus (a 1989 64-passenger school bus) broke down five days into the trip. Heartbroken but not ready to give up, the group decided, since it was already commited to a set number of service hours, that the service work could be done anywhere. 

Therefore, Borutta and his friends went back to their hometown of Saint Louis and worked at community gardens, food shelters, and charity fundraisers. Then, the group went down to Joplin for a week to help the victums of the tornado. In the end, Borutta and his friends had a lot of great experiences, completed the goal of 560 hours of service work, and hopefully inspired people to care about their community and environment.

"Ecogrease Lightning will not stop trying to change the world for the better even if that mean we have to blow up a few buses to get there," said Borutta. "We almost have federal 501c3 Non-Profit status and will be pursuing the second shot at our adventure next summer."