Freshmen Give Back to Community They Now Call Home
During their first weekend as Trojans, hundreds of USC freshmen chose to volunteer their time and services in the community they just started calling home.
More than 450 USC students, mostly incoming freshmen, gathered eagerly in front of Bovard Auditorium on Saturday, Aug. 22, to participate in the 14th annual Friends and Neighbors Service Day.
Hosted by the USC Volunteer Center as part of Welcome Week, Friends and Neighbors Service Day introduces students to a variety of non-profit organizations throughout the Los Angeles area looking for volunteers.
"We hope that they get introduced to those organizations, become familiar with the issues that they're grappling with and understand strategies that can be used to address those issues," says Melissa Gaeke, director of the USC Volunteer Center.
Vice President of Student Affairs Michael L. Jackson, Dean Marilyn Flynn of the School of Social Work and Dr. Robert Padgett, president of the USC Alumni Association, kicked off the event at 8 a.m. with a discussion of the value of volunteer work to society, the surrounding community and the Trojan Family.
From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., students volunteered at more than 30 project sites — including a full-service women's shelter and the Los Angeles Ronald McDonald House, which provides support for families of seriously ill children.
Volunteers at the Children's Nature Institute worked at a children's garden in Griffith Park.
"The fact that [the Children's Nature Institute] had 20 organized volunteers who were eager to work in a focused way probably helped them do a week's worth of work in three hours," says Gaeke.
At the Back to School J.A.M., students in the surrounding community met with USC students in the SCholars Program to talk about college readiness. The SCholars Program also donated backpacks full of school supplies.
Several other university groups, including the Troy Hall Residential Advisor staff, the Structured Curriculum Program and the sorority Alpha Delta Pi, also made commitments to participate.
Gaeke says that the volunteer commitment from university organizations helps them "create a reference point for service that's important" and a "shared ethos of involvement and engagement."
The next Friends and Neighbors Service Day is November 21. For more information, please visit www.usc.edu/volunteer/fnd.asp.