Students, faculty, staff reach out to community through volunteer day

Despite junior papers and senior theses deadlines looming around the corner, many students — along with faculty and staff — devoted last Saturday to a different type of project: volunteering.

Campus Volunteer Day — in which over 50 students, faculty and staff participated — was sponsored by the Office of Community and State Affairs with the support of Community House.

The participants worked at the Princeton Nursery School, Princeton Young Achievers Clay Street Learning Center, Princeton Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center, Princeton Public Library and Stony Brook Millstone Watershed.

Danielle Nunez '02, who helped organize the event, said that past activities have largely been "spring cleanups, some kind of activity that a group of people can do."

Nunez said she worked at the nursery school. "We did outdoor yardwork . . . and organized books in their library."

"I met probably about seven new people that I didn't know before," she said.

Margaret Michael, an administrative assistant in the athletics office, spent the morning working at the nursing home. She said her group put out Easter eggs for the grandchildren of the residents and helped to bring some of the residents to watch the young children hunt for the eggs. "It was just a very nice way of bringing the family together . . . The young age group with the older age group was a wonderful mix," she said. "One woman had such a beautiful countenance on her face . . . It was a beautiful experience."

Michael said she wanted to get involved in the Princeton community and found Campus Volunteer Day was a good way to help others while getting to know fellow University community members.

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"We would certainly be interested in helping out again," Michael added.

Tracy Wynter '02, a member of Community House, recruited undergraduate participants by sending out e-mails to various student organizations.

Wynter worked at the library. "They're moving the library temporarily," she said. Some books had to be moved and others put into temporary storage. The volunteers, who Wynter said numbered around nine, organized the books.

After holding a breakfast at Frist Campus Center, the volunteers went to their respective sites around 10 a.m. Wynter and her co-volunteers at the library worked through the early afternoon.

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"It went well. They actually only asked for five of us, but we had extra volunteers," Wynter said. "I enjoyed it and the people I talked to enjoyed it as well."

Jonathan Schmitz '02 worked at the Clay Street Learning Center — which serves children through grade six — with about 15 other University community members.

"It was a library project," Schmitz said. "All of the books were pretty disorganized, and we pretty much took all the books off the shelves."

Schmitz said Community House — of which he is a staff member — has a long-standing relationship with the Clay Street center. "I've been there a couple of times in the past," he said.

The watershed project, Nunez said, "was a forest restoration project that took pace in Hopewell, N.J."

Nunez and those who worked with her started planning the program at the beginning of the semester by contacting several local groups to find out which ones needed volunteers.

Vice President for Campus Life Janet Dickerson said that perhaps two-thirds of all Princeton students are "doing something that involves community service."

"This provides an opportunity for people to do some tasks just on this particular one day," Dickerson said.