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Haley Lukas had no idea a student could minor in Disability Studies at Cal until midway through her freshman year.
 
Turns out she had been preparing for the coursework all along.
 
Lukas, a senior on Cal's women's soccer team, is a magnet for helping others. The winner of the 2017 Walter A. Haas Jr. Community Service Award given annually to a student-athlete for outstanding community service has spent an overwhelming chunk of her free time since age 5 serving in a variety of volunteer roles.
 
One mission that she has become especially passionate about is that of Special Olympics – the world's largest sports organization for people with intellectual disabilities. She began volunteering at Special Olympics track & field meets in the seventh grade and has helped organize countless events since. That includes several since she has been a student-athlete at Cal.
 
"I didn't really even know that Disability Studies was a thing until I got here," Lukas said. "I found this class, 'Woman and Disability.' I don't really remember how I first saw it, but I immediately thought I've been working with people for a while and that really appealed to me."
 
Lukas' exposure to charitable causes began when she was in kindergarten, when her parents attempted to explain the concept of Lent to her. They ultimately suggested she give up her time for Lent, and Lukas volunteered at a soup night at St. Raymond Catholic Church in Dublin, where she also went to school.
 
Lukas ended up working at the soup nights all the way through her graduation from high school.
 
"I really liked getting to do hands-on things with people and having it help someone," Lukas said. "Being so little, they gave me small tasks like putting salt and pepper shakers on tables and things like that. I thought it was fun. Once I tried it, it stuck with me for years. It was just something that I've really loved doing."
 
Lukas was in seventh grade when she and her mom, Shari, decided to start working with the National Charity League – a nonprofit national volunteer organization comprised of mothers and daughters. The Pleasanton chapter of the NCL works with numerous nonprofit organizations around the Bay Area, and Lukas spent time volunteering with the Special Olympics of Northern California, Open Heart Kitchen and Blue Star Moms, among others.
 
It was Lukas' work with Special Olympics that really stuck with her the most, in large part because she is an athlete.
 
"I was a track athlete as well in high school, and I think the combination of sports and volunteer work was really cool to me," Lukas said. "I'm getting to work with people who are doing something that I do, too. That's been really rewarding. Just getting to be a fan and supporter of the Special Olympics – I love watching track, too, so being able to be a part of that is really special."
 
Like the soup nights at St. Raymond, Lukas continued with the NCL through high school graduation. When she arrived at Cal as a student-athlete, she knew she wouldn't be able to serve her community in the same way she did at home – but there were other ways to satisfy her urges to give back.
 
One was with her classwork. After taking the Women and Disabilities class during the spring semester of her freshman year, she decided she wanted to add the Disability Studies minor to her major in Business Administration. The minor requires five classes – four of which she has now completed.
 
"Doing a lot of coursework in disability theory has been rewarding," Lukas said. "It's opened my perspective to the actual academic side, as opposed to just interacting with people from my own perspective. It's made me realize how we live in a world that's very built for able-bodied people. We don't really realize how our society is set up doesn't really support people with disabilities as much as it should. All the classwork is really interesting."
 
UC Berkeley Disability Studies lecturer Marsha Saxton said Lukas' previous experience working with Special Olympics makes her a natural leader in the classroom.
 
"Haley is an excellent scholar and a great student," Saxton said. "She is supportive to other students and has great leadership qualities. I admire her being able to balance athletics in college and being such a rigorous student."
 
While Lukas' commitments at Cal limit the amount of time she can devote to work in her hometown community, it turns out her passion for service travels well. Lukas has immersed herself in the Golden Bear Advisory Committee – a council made up of Cal student-athletes who, among other things, lead philanthropic efforts for the athletic department's 30 sports.
 
Lukas spent two years as GBAC's Vice President of Philanthropy and in December was elected president.
 
"I feel I was put on this earth to give myself to others, or to do things to help others," Lukas said. "I've given so much time for it and it's never felt like a burden. It just feels really natural. Yes, I get some gratification out of it in that I love that I've personally helped someone. But I think it's more the selflessness of it has just been more natural when I've never felt like I'm putting myself out to do something."
 
Among the philanthropic efforts Lukas has overseen with GBAC has been a partnership with StopWaste, a public agency committed to reducing the waste stream in Alameda County. Lukas and approximately 50 Cal student-athletes visited Hoover Elementary School in Oakland in December for a gardening project in which they learned how to sheet mulch – a way of using recycled cardboard products to create new soil.
 
StopWaste held a similar event on Martin Luther King Jr. Day the following month at Hesperian Elementary School in San Leandro and Lukas showed up again on her own.
 
"We weren't expecting anyone from Cal to come that day because the students weren't back for the semester yet, but she and her friend just showed up," said StopWaste program manager Angelina Vergara. "It just showed how invested she is in our work. What really impressed me about Haley is that she was a humble leader – confident but at the same time humble. She didn't make a big deal about it but you could tell she was the leader of the group."
 
Lukas has one more year remaining at Cal and hopes to play professionally in Europe. Whenever her soccer career comes to an end, she plans on attending law school. With the Disability Studies curriculum now a big part of her education, Lukas has designs on taking an even bigger leadership role with some kind of community effort.
 
"I'd love to have a leadership role in an organization, to be more involved than just coming to a volunteer opportunity every Saturday," Lukas said. "Whatever community I'll be in, I'll try to be a leader in those communities and give any resources I can provide to those communities to be most effective."