Forgoing sleeping late and staying warm, around 2,000 University of Pittsburgh students awoke early Saturday morning to participate in the university's inaugural Make-A-Difference Day.

On one of fall's chilliest mornings, they convened around 8:30 on the lawn of the William Pitt Union in Oakland, where they boarded buses and headed to more than 40 different sites, from West Homestead to North Park to Penn Hills.

Shawn Ahearn, the spokesman for Pitt's Division of Student Affairs, said he was surprised at the turnout, but very pleased.

"It was pretty special to see the student sacrifice on a Saturday morning," he said.

Senior Ryan Haddad, a member of the student government board, said the event grew out of a smaller cleanup project in Oakland, where many students already do community service. He said he wanted to get students out of their home turf.

"We are the University of Pittsburgh, not the university of Oakland," he said. "It was a chance to actually get out of our neighborhood and put our imprint on the city."

Pitt's community service blitz was modeled after a program at Texas A&M University called the Big Event, Mr. Haddad said. It also fell a week before the national Make-A-Difference Day sponsored by USA Weekend magazine on the fourth Saturday in October.

Mr. Haddad said Pitt's event was named before he heard of the national one. Organizers had planned to hold it in conjunction with the national event, but worried that homecoming events next weekend would reduce student turnout.

The community service projects varied. Some students helped to clean up parks and neighborhoods, and some assisted in the warehouse of the Salvation Army. Others played with children from the Big Brothers Big Sisters program at its center in East Liberty or packaged instructional science kits at the office of the organization Achieving Student Success Through Excellence in Teaching, called ASSET.

Another 40 students went to Penn Hills to volunteer with a team from the television show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," which is remodeling the home of Frank and Tracy Slaughter there.

More than 40 local community service organizations were enlisted to work with groups of students, said Pitt junior Amanda Reed, who coordinated the event with Mr. Haddad.

The students were from campus organizations ranging from the College Republicans to the Black Action Society to the Engineering Student Council. More than half came as crews from the residence halls and about 500 came with their fraternities and sororities.

Part of the event's goal, beyond helping the community, was to get students from diverse backgrounds to work together.

Members of the Black Action Society, for example, worked with members of the Student Engineering Council on a project.

"They don't do programming together, and they don't usually interact, so that was really cool," said Ms. Reed.