East Carolina University.
A P i rat e ’s Guide to
Service
Tomorrow starts here.
A publication of the Volunteer and Service-Learning Center
Another Successful Year As ECU wraps up another year, so does the VSLC. Listed below are some of the service related achievements for the 2008-2009 academic year. Through on-campus blood drives, 2,791 units of blood have been donated to the American Red Cross. The Food Bank of Central and eastern NC received more than 42,000 pounds of canned food from service-learning classes, extra credit projects, and residence hall collections. The NC-ACTS! program generated 7,500 volunteer hours through 25 ECU students, including 7 VSLC peer counselors. Of the 45 students inducted into ECU’s Servire Society, 9 were continuing members from 2007-2008. National Days of Service such as Make a Difference Day and the MLK Day Challenge generated 200 students to volunteer with local community partners. The first Million Meals Challenge was successfully executed with 800 local volunteers packaging 200,000 meals to address world hunger. Virginia State Parks, Habitat for Humanity, Give2theTroops, and Sylvan Heights Waterfowl Center hosted 19 students for alternative spring break projects.
PirateFest The VSLC partnered with the PirateFest planning committee this year by providing 150 volunteers during the day event. On Saturday, April 18th, some students rolled out of bed to help with festival setup at 7a.m., while others worked the day shifts at the Little Pirate’s Pavilion, the Uptown Arts Festival, the International Festival and the Buccaneer Bash. Students could be found answering questions and selling t-shirts at information tables, quenching people’s thirst in Pepsi wagons, directing traffic around the barricades, setting up stereo equipment at one of the performance stages, and running errands for local vendors. The new VSLC volunteer coordinator, Michael Loeffelman, managed the total group of ECU volunteers.
Give-n-Go Give-n-Go is a weeklong event that takes place over the last week of school in spring semester. This year, Give-n-Go ran from Friday, May 1st to May 8th, the day before senior commencement. Large boxes served as collection points for students to donate gently used clothing, canned food items, school supplies, blankets, pillows, etc. that they no longer needed. These items were collected throughout the week, sorted and then delivered to Goodwill, Give2theTroops and the Food Bank. Altogether, more than 4 tons of items were donated, and over 200 pounds of canned food items were collected.
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Volunteer Recognition Banquet Literacy Day
The Campus Kitchens Project Holocaust Luminary
Calendar of VSLC Upcoming Events VSLC Summer Plans
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Volunteer Recognition Banquet
Volunteer Recognition
Since the second to last week in April is National Volunteer Appreciation Week, the VSLC held the annual Volunteer Recognition Banquet on April 21st. Students were invited from all fields of volunteer work, blood drives, sorority and fraternity philanthropies, service-learning courses, ECU-READS, PEN-FRIENDS, and other VSLC programs.
East Carolina University
Heather King, WITN’s news reporter, opened the ceremony by introducing each of the nominees for the Individual Excellence in Service Award. Ashley Hunter was recognized for her work with Victory Junction, Anna M. Taylor for volunteering with TOP Soccer, Beth Anne Koury for assisting Special Olympics, Amy E. Coffin for contributing time to AseraCare Hospice, and Margot Cozy in serving with the LCPS Migrant Education Program. Next, Heather introduced the nominees for the Group Excellence in Service Award. Lindsey Bradsher’s Communication 4080 students were recognized for their work with the Ronald McDonald House, the Student Pirate Club for their contribution in blood drives with American Red Cross Blood Services, and the PTC Tutor Crew for their volunteer work with the Pirate Tutoring Center. The Awards were presented to Ashley Hunter, Anna M. Taylor, and the Student Pirate Club.
Following the Excellence in Service Awards, the VSLC AmeriCorps*Vista, Jeni Bergman, presented her North Carolina Campus Compact capstone, which highlighted fond memories of the Center’s past year in a creative, poetic form. Then, the VSLC staff presented individual awards to students who participated in semester or year-long programs involving continued commitment to volunteer work and the Center. These were students who participated in T.R.I.P.S., Pirate Playtime, F.O.C.U.S. and the Student Service Council. Service-learning associates, peer counselors and work study students were also recognized. One of the freshman F.O.C.U.S. members, Katy Ross, was recognized for completing the most volunteer work during the year, and was awarded a mini-iPod from Campus Living. Finally, Judy Baker, the Center’s founder, presented Judy B. Baker Service Scholars Tiffany Mills, Melanie Ross, and Alexandria Kessler with certificates and tassels for their completion of 300 volunteer hours over the course of their undergraduate careers.
Literacy Day ECU-READS is a campus-based literacy program that runs out of the VSLC. At-risk learners at local elementary schools are identified by school administrators to participate in the ECU program. Through tutoring and mentoring, young students receive both academic and social support by developing individual reading and English language skills. This year, the program was supervised by Allison Stephens, a recent graduate of East Carolina University and AmeriCorps N.C. Literacy Corps S.C.A.L.E. member. Throughout two semesters, Allison recruited, trained and supervised 80 ECU students who served as mentors to elementary school children attending Wahl-Coates School in Greenville. Also, Allison developed PEN-FRIENDS, a pen-pal system for elementary students. ECU students were paired with It’s easy to make a the students for one semester and exchanged weekly letters that focused on English writing techniques. buck, it’s a lot tougher to make a difference. One of the responsibilities Allison inherited this year was organizing and implementing Literacy Day. On Literacy Day, the entire kindergarten class at Wahl-Coates was invited to ECU’s campus for a day Tom Brokaw of interaction and literacy related activities. On April 8th, if one wandered up to the second floor of Mendenhall, they might have found a policeman, firefighter, dentist, nurse, school teacher, army soldier or veterinarian explaining their job to a group of interested, young children. Besides coming in uniform, representatives read a passage from popular children’s books that described their job duties. Then, the students participated in short arts and crafts activities to reinforce what they had learned before moving on to the next table. At the end of the day, students were sporting homemade nurse hats and police badges while carrying around their favorite animal masks. Altogether, about 60 Wahl-Coates students attended Literacy Day.
New Volunteer Projects
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The Campus Kitchens Project
Since fall 2008, the VSLC has been working closely with Campus Dining and Aramark on a new project that is to begin in September 2009. The Campus Kitchens Project is an emerging program out of DC Central Kitchens that targets specific issues of food waste, nutrition, hunger and poverty. So far, 20 schools have joined the Campus Kitchen Network across the country and the number is continuing to grow. With the addition of an ECU kitchen, North Carolina will have two established kitchens, the other located on Wake Forest University’s campus, entering its fourth year of production.
East Carolina University
Campus Kitchens (CK) is a food recycling program that effectively uses surplus food from campus dining halls and other local companies to prepare and deliver healthy, balanced meals to the surrounding community. Typically, Campus Dining designates one kitchen space to share with CK during off-hours (evenings and weekends) where students prepare the meals. By this design, the kitchen uses readily available resources to function effectively, therefore demanding minimal cost for its continued upkeep. This will be the first ongoing program where ECU students volunteer directly on campus grounds, having the kitchen conveniently located in one of the dining halls. This project will also address a new area of service for students. Volunteers during cooking shifts will create new menu items, prepare food and package meals. Those students will learn the functions of working in a commercial kitchen atmosphere while following the safety procedures and food handling techniques as any other professional foodservice industry. Volunteers during delivery shifts will serve meals and interact with the community partners. Students will have the opportunity to sit down and enjoy the meals they prepare with the population they serve.
The ECU kitchen will be under the management of VSLC staff and the CK Board, which will represent involved students, community partners, campus departments, student organizations, Campus Dining and Aramark services. Although this project is projected to begin in September, there are still many details and formalities that need to be established before a CK is guaranteed a place on ECU’s campus. With that stated, the VSLC will be working hard through the summer building relationships across the Greenville community in order to ensure its success.
Holocaust Luminary In continuation of ECU’s Holocaust Awareness Day, the VSLC held its annual luminary on the night of April 8th, an event that was postponed due to weather conditions in early March. The luminary was located on the university mall where 1,000 white paper bags were filled with sand and a candle to honor those who lost their lives in the Holocaust. The candles burned for 3 hours while a mixture of students, faculty, staff and Greenville residents walked along the sidewalks, reading the individual names on the bags and reflecting on the Holocaust’s history. Volunteers took turns reading victims’ names and diary passages under the Cupola throughout the luminary, which brought personal experience to each of the bags represented. Afterwards, VSLC staff dismantled the luminaries and donated the sand to REAP (Revolving Education Around Partnership), a program for preschool children with special needs. The sand will be used for a summer Beach Party, Dinosaur Day and other special events.
Top Photograph: View of Jarvis and Fleming Hall from sidewalk. Left Photograph: Luminary Bag representing Raisl Grossman, age 8, victim of the Holocaust.
Calendar of VSLC Upcoming Events
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Fluff ‘N Puff: Saturday, June 13 from 10:00a.m.-2:00p.m. Jarvis Memorial United Methodist Church, Downtown Greenville. For more information, hsec@embarqmail.com Snack Project: Tuesday, June 16 from 10:30-11:30a.m. Operation Sunshine. Snack Project: Thursday, June 18 from 10:30-11:30a.m. Little Willie Center. Snack Project: Tuesday, June 23 from 10:30-11:30a.m. Building Hope. Fluff ‘N Puff: Saturday, June 27 from 10:00a.m.-2:00p.m. Jarvis Memorial United Methodist Church, Downtown Greenville. For more information, hsec@embarqmail.com Snack Project: Tuesday, June 30 from 10:30-11:30a.m. Eppes Middle School. Snack Project: Tuesday, July 7 from 10:30-11:30a.m. Operation Sunshine. Snack Project: Thursday, July 9 from 10:30-11:30a.m. Little Willie Center. Fluff ‘N Puff: Saturday, July 11 from 10:00a.m.-2:00p.m. Jarvis Memorial United Methodist Church, Downtown Greenville. For more information, hsec@embarqmail.com Snack Project: Thursday, July 16 from 10:30-11:30a.m. Building Hope. Snack Project: Tuesday, July 21 from 10:30-11:30a.m. Boys and Girls Minges Unit. Million Meals Challenge: Saturday, August 22. For more information, www.ecu.edu/vslc
VSLC Summer Plans Even though ECU has entered into the summer months, the VSLC is still working to prepare for fall semester. On the technological front, the staff is working on transitioning the volunteer database over to the Banner system, which will allow students to access their service records individually through OneStop. Also, a new web site design created by Dr. Nasseh Tabrizi’s spring software engineering class will be put in place to help students navigate and explore the Center’s resources more efficiently. Recruitment for August’s Million Meals Challenge has already begun with our volunteer coordinator, Michael Loeffelman. 800 volunteers are needed to package 250,000 meals to address the increasing problem of world hunger. Snack Projects will also happen over the months of June and July. The VSLC will take leftover chips, fruit and cookies from ECU summer camps to local community partners in need of a bigger food supply to serve their summer programs. Our community partner coordinator, Shawn Moore, is conducting site visits to each organization interested in remaining an active partner. She is addressing issues the partner may have faced over the academic year and revising contact information or description statements that will be published in the annual Service Opportunities Guide. Our service-learning coordinator, Jessica Gagne Cloutier, is recording and reviewing previous service-learning course evaluations while working individually with instructors on service projects to be implemented in the fall. Finally, the VSLC will be working to establish the foundations for the Campus Kitchens Project and a Saturday Service Program, which will be an alternative sanction for those adjudicated students receiving on-campus violations. Volunteer and Service-Learning Center Old Cafeteria Complex 252-328-2735 (phone) 252-328-0139 (fax) www.ecu.edu/vslc vslc@ecu.edu Shawn Moore, Community Partner Coordinator Jessica Gagne Cloutier, Service-Learning Coordinator Michael Loeffelman, Volunteer Coordinator Judy Baker, Institutional and Community Development Consultant Jennifer Bergman, AmeriCorps*Vista
June Edition 2009