They mulched trees, boxed books, sorted clothes, made
sandwiches, gardened, conducted a community survey and
gussied up a portion of a neighborhood park, among many
other activities. Talk about your whirlwind couple of
hours.
On Wednesday, Sept. 3, 700 new Homewood undergraduates
finished up their orientation period with Involved 2003, an
effort intended to introduce them to their surroundings and
the idea of making service integral to their lives and
studies.
Although intermittent rain jumbled the day's itinerary
somewhat, Involved 2003 went on mostly as planned, as
nearly two-thirds of Johns Hopkins' class of 2007
participated in 21 community service or
information-gathering projects. The day's program was
coordinated by the university's
Center for Social
Concern, the
Orientation Committee and
Alpha Phi
Omega.
Formerly known as Freshman Day of Service, the program
was founded in 1998 by a Johns Hopkins undergraduate who
felt his fellow students were missing out on all the
volunteer opportunities available to them just a stone's
throw away from Homewood campus.
Packing care packages at Heart's
Place Shelter in St. John's Church.
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Bill Tiefenwerth, director of the Center for Social
Concern, said that the new name for the program reflects a
desire to make the day a little less about short-term
service or work and more about long-term community
involvement.
"I guess you can say in the basic sense that we are
trying to embark upon an unfolding awareness of community,"
said Tiefenwerth, borrowing a word from Involved 2003's
slogan, "Action, Awareness, Reflection."
The day began at 11 a.m., when hundreds of students
gathered around Shriver Hall to be broken into groups of
roughly 12 to 30, each representing a freshman residence
hall.
Among the 21 destinations, almost all within walking
distance of campus, were the Keswick Multi-Care Center,
Heart's Place Shelter and Roosevelt Park, where students
mulched trees and weeded. Other activities included
visiting the Roland Park Place retirement community, to
meet and read with residents; team building exercises at
Project PLASE, an organization that addresses homelessness;
shelving and stamping books for the Book Thing of
Baltimore; making sandwiches and bagging care packages for
STAR, an organization dedicated to providing services to
women with HIV/ AIDS; and spending a day with members of
BUILD, a faith-based, multidenominational, citywide
organization that seeks to transform neighborhoods by
training and developing neighborhood leaders. For the BUILD
activity, students were bused to areas of the city where
the organization was directly involved.
Matthew D'Agostino, the Center for Social Concern's
assistant director and a coordinator of Involved 2003, said
that while the day did incorporate some cleanup and
beautification projects where students could get their
hands dirty, simply sending out students to perform manual
labor could send the wrong message both to them and the
community.
Student group marches down Charles
Street en route to its project site. The 700-plus freshman
volunteers were divided by residence hall.
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"There was a lot more diversity of activities this
year," D'Agostino said. "It wasn't all about doing
something so much as it was about absorbing the issues that
face Baltimore. The idea was to take an issue like housing
and homelessness and give students a context as to what is
going on locally. A lot of people are afraid to talk about
the bad things about Baltimore to these students, but that,
we feel, is a mistake. We wanted to introduce students to
people who are involved in the solutions to these issues,
so that in turn they could see what part they could have in
the solution as well."
D'Agostino said that despite the rainy conditions and
the canceling of some outdoor-related projects, the day had
a large turnout, and organizers considered it a huge
success.
"Considering what logistical problems there could have
been, everything went surprisingly smoothly, and the
students had a lot of good things to say when they came
back," he said.
Sammy Huang, a freshman who participated in the Book
Thing project, said he was inspired by the number of
students who braved the damp, cloudy conditions.
"It's really good to see everyone out and involved in
the community," said Huang, who is from Delaware and is
planning to major in biology. "This day gives people a
chance to explore more of Baltimore and see what is
around--and help people at the same time."
Sorting clothes at Heart's Place
Shelter in St. John's Church. Susie Fawzi, standing left,
said that Involved 2003 was 'a great starting point' for
would-be volunteers.
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Tiefenwerth said that one of the stated goals of
Involved 2003 is to foster relationships between students
and nonprofit community service organizations so that
students sometime during their four years at Johns Hopkins
will want to volunteer some of their time at these
places.
Based on what a sampling of students said, that
message comes through loud and clear.
Susie Fawzi, who spent the afternoon at Heart's Place
Shelter sorting clothes, said that Involved 2003 was a
"great starting point" for students who wanted to
volunteer.
"When you first come to school, you don't know what is
out there to do, and this day gives you a good idea of what
needs to be done in the community," said Fawzi, who is from
Morristown, N.J. "If I hadn't come here [to Heart's Place
Shelter] today, I would have never known this place
existed."