First, students donned the uniform — kelly green T-shirts with "You Just Got Served" printed in white on the front.

Next, they squeezed together in front of a tiny white bungalow under renovation in Pagedale and posed for a group shot. "I love service!" they cried in unison as a camera flash went off.

Then, they grabbed sledgehammers, donned gloves and safety goggles, marched away with pruners and rakes, and went to work.

Because of a grant of nearly half a million dollars recently awarded to the University of Missouri-St. Louis, such groups will be doing work like this in the community for the next few years, and hopefully their members for the rest of their lives.

The three-year, $420,000 grant, from the Corporation for National and Community Service, will help enlist even more students to do service work and address housing and education needs in the area.

The grant allows the campus to start a program called UMSL Students of Service, which seeks to centralize and expand volunteer work by several student organizations. Next semester, community service will also be integrated in the curriculum of four courses. For example, advertising students will develop door hangers about home foreclosures, and a business writing class will do work for local nonprofit groups. The university hopes to add a service component to several courses a year.

"We hope this becomes part of a student's regular activities, so that service becomes part of their adult life," said Kay Gasen, director of the project for the university.

Partners to the project include Normandy School District, which has struggled for years with below-average test scores and declining enrollment.

Stanton Lawrence, the Normandy superintendent, says the grant will give the district and university even more chances to work together. Most recently, university professors fine-tuned and looked over a new district curriculum. But despite the fact that the university provides more teaching certificates than anywhere else in the state, there aren't as many university student teachers and observers in Normandy schools as you'd expect, he said.

"For those folks that really have a desire for an urban experience, Normandy is right here for the taking," he said.

The university is also teaming up with Beyond Housing, an organization dedicated to providing affordable housing and support services in the St. Louis area, with a focus in Normandy and the municipalities near the university.

The neighborhoods have some of the highest foreclosure rates in the area.

Beyond Housing has recently bought 25 foreclosed properties in the Normandy School District in the last three months as part of a Neighborhood Stabilization Program for St. Louis County. It hopes to buy another 50 homes by the end of the summer, part of greater effort to build or renovate hundreds more homes in the area.

Chris Krehmeyer, head of Beyond Housing, says the partnership with UMSL gives students opportunities to check in on senior citizens, clean the communities and spruce up properties.

"That does wonders, not only for that individual homeowner, but it does wonders for that broader community," he said.

One recent Friday, about 20 students from UMSL traveled to Kingsland Avenue in Pagedale, to work at two small bungalows being renovated by Beyond Housing. The students were needed to pick up construction debris, prune hedges, and break up concrete steps and a driveway. The homes will eventually be rented to low-income families.

Shea Kelley, 27, a junior at UMSL and president of the university's chapter of the service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega, said the event would build support among students for future projects.

"Every one of them is going to go back and talk about what they did today," he said. "Something has happened in our lives where we're fortunate enough to be in college. That's the common thread. So it's a way to give back."