Division II is recognizing one school from each conference with a $500 award for outstanding community engagement.

The honors are part of the second annual Division II Community Engagement Award of Excellence, an award established last year to build momentum for Division II’s community-engagement initiative and reward institutions for their creativity in advancing the effort. Division II schools were encouraged to submit their best community-engagement promotion from the “ideas that work” section on the Division II community-engagement Web site.

Kutztown’s community-engagement effort called “Paint the Town Gold” was named as the national winner.

The award allocation can be used for other community-engagement efforts.

Kutztown, which will be recognized at the Division II community-engagement workshop April 15-16 in Philadelphia was selected for its initiative that supported the school’s Family Day activities at a home football game this past fall.

Activities included a window painting contest, a pep rally on Friday night, and a community-based “Spirit Strut” to the stadium on game day. The school also conducted a canned-food drive for a local food bank for the entire week leading up to Family Day. The overall event engaged members of the university, the Borough of Kutztown and Maxatawny Township. Three university offices – community relations and development services, athletics advancement, and athletics – oversaw the festivities.

For more about the Kutztown event, click here. Conference winners are listed below.

Other conference winners:

California Collegiate Athletic Association – UC San Diego

Central Atlantic – Philadelphia Sciences

Conference Carolinas – Limestone

East Coast – Dowling

Great Lakes Intercollegiate – Michigan Tech

Great Lakes Valley – Lewis

Great Northwest – Montana State-Billings

Gulf South – Arkansas Tech

Heartland – Newman

Lone Star – Cameron

Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association – Central Missouri

Northeast-10 – American International

Northern Sun – Southwest Minnesota State

Pacific West – Grand Canyon

Peach Belt – Peach Belt Conference Soccer

Pennsylvania State – Kutztown

Rocky Mountain – Metropolitan State

South Atlantic – Newberry

Southern Intercollegiate – Clark Atlanta

Sunshine State – Florida Southern

West Virginia Intercollegiate – West Liberty State