Princeton serves it up

The phrase "Princeton in the Nation's Service and in the Service of all Nations" may have lost some of its relevance these days, but for many Princeton students, service remains close to the heart. Every day, students at the University join with scores of campus service organizations to make a sustainable difference in the community — not only locally, but on a national and international scale as well.

The sheer volume of avenues by which students engage in community service at Princeton is such that an entire organization, the Pace Center, exists to coordinate the student groups that partake in civil engagement. Only a few of these groups are highlighted here.

The largest service venue on campus is the Student Volunteers Council (SVC), which was founded in 1967. Guided by student participants and directors, the SVC sponsors over 40 projects each year in the Princeton and Trenton communities and beyond. These initiatives range from tutoring and medical volunteering to cultural outreach programs for local youths and senior citizens.

Over the past few years, the SVC has focused much energy and attention on taking an "assets-based approach" to community service. According to SVC Executive Board facilitator Sita Bushan '08, this means building the community's assets by applying the skills that University students learn in class to issues in the local community.

"We really believe in taking what we have to make a difference in the community," Bushan said. "SVC projects seek to get students who spend a lot of time in the classroom out into the real world, to apply what they've learned in theory to real problems and issues."

The goal is that the students themselves should coordinate this application of theory to reality, added Jessica Gheiler '08, SVC Elderly/Youth Outreach chair. "The University has a certain model of service that has to do with relating to issues you're learning [about] in the classroom," she said. "We believe in more of a student-run approach."

According to Gheiler, this means that students should be encouraged to foster discussions based on what they learn in service activities, bringing in faculty when appropriate in what she called a "precept turned around."

"This kind of approach is not nonacademic," she added. "It's a different kind of academic. The focus is outside the classroom." Instead, Gheiler said, the focus should be on conversation between SVC volunteers and the rest of the University community.

Communication within the SVC is also important to its mission. "Many of my projects have come from a dialogue between me and past students," noted Gheiler, who said that she often gets inspiration for new ideas by examining the files of previous students who had organized projects.

Bushan also stressed the importance of ongoing SVC projects in maintaining a strong relationship between the University and the community. "Our model is sustained service," she said. "The goal of our structure is to have some connectivity of the projects over the years."

The SVC maintains this connectivity by means of its roughly 35 "weekly projects," which allow students to engage in a specific volunteering activity, such as tutoring or volunteering at a food pantry, each week.

One such project is Better Days, founded by Eve Henry '05, through which Princeton students perform science experiments for child cancer patients. Originally, Better Days catered to the oncology ward of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Hospital; this year, it expanded to serve the Cancer Institute for New Jersey pediatric clinic as well.

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Alexandra Satty '10 is one of the students who goes regularly to the children's hospital with Better Days. "Last time we mixed oil with water and added food coloring," she said, "and the children were so excited to see the colors!"

Students say the fact that their visits occur regularly makes a difference to the children. "The visits from the dedicated group of Princeton volunteers who are involved in this project have become a weekly diversion for the kids from their often longterm stays in the hospital," Anne Armstrong '08, SVC Project Coordinator for Better Days, said. "The number of Princeton students interested in being involved has been growing over the past few years, and it looks as though the project will continue to bring Princeton students together with kids in need to brighten their days for a number of years to come."

Such a commitment to sustained service is also important to the SVC when it plans service trips during breaks, such as the two that took place over fall break. One group of about 15 students went to Maine to help restore Acadia National Park through fence building and ecological upkeep. Another group of about 10 students traveled to Abbeville, La., where they worked on hurricane relief with the Vermilion Community Care Program and the United Way of Acadiana.

Last week's Louisiana trip was the third that the SVC has taken to Abbeville since Hurricane Rita devastated the area last year. Jamie Ausborn '08 has been on all three of these break trips. Ausborn said that she has been drawn back to Abbeville each time by "the unique connection that you make with the people who are here."

Ausborn and her fellow volunteers, most of whom did not know each other before last week, spent their fall break living in a church and helping to renovate the home of two elderly women whose house suffered extensive water damage last fall. "The house, which is in a rural area, didn't have bathroom facilities originally, so we are adding an addition," Ausborn said.

Ausborn stressed that homeowners and local residents are not the only people to benefit from the SVC's break trips to Abbeville. "Not many Princeton students know much about the South," the Mississippi native said. "This is a great chance for them to learn about the culture here."

The cultural benefits of service are also important to Rory Truex '07, founder of Summer of Service, a new program that allows Princeton students to teach English in China for the summer.

Truex was inspired to start Summer of Service after his own experience traveling in China in the summer of 2005 with Princeton-in-Asia. "When I was in China, I was traveling with a group. I thought that was a fun model," Truex said. "I liked the idea of bringing a group of students to China and instead of traveling around, [setting] up a program in one location."

Truex soon discovered the benefits of attending a well-endowed institution like Princeton; with the help of Princeton-in-Asia, he was able to secure funding to establish his own service project from the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS), the Pace Center, the Princeton Prospect Foundation, five of the eating clubs, the Class of 1948 and individual donors.

"This project represents a kind of this cross-generational commitment to service at the university," Truex said of the intergroup cooperation, which he insists will make this project sustainable.

"On the Chinese side, they are very excited about keeping it going, because it was such a success," he explained. "On our side, Princeton-in-Asia has adopted Summer of Service, so it's officially one of their projects now. It will have two new student leaders each year."

The benefits of Summer of Service are likewise two-sided. "The difference goes both ways," Truex said. "By the end of the program, we have [Chinese] students coming up to us, [telling us that] this has been the best summer of [their] lives ... on our side, a lot came back in awe of China. Everyone came away with a new perspective. I think that's the most important part of service — getting a new perspective."

Gaining the amount of perspective that Truex and Ausborn did on their service trips takes time and effort, but students can still enjoy the benefits of engaging in community service on a smaller scale right here in Princeton. In fact, service can even take place on the Street, thanks to the Prospect Alliance for Community Action (PACA).

PACA is a board that consists of the community service chairs of each of the eating clubs that, according to its chair, Teresa Velez '07, "serves to facilitate inter-club cooperation with regard to community service." PACA organizes events such as periodic Street-wide canned food drives, like the one that took place on October 19th, which benefited the Crisis Ministry of Trenton.

PACA also participates in more interactive service projects, such as its sustained work with Home Front, a group that aids disadvantaged children in Trenton. "We had a few nights where children of different age groups were invited to come to an eating club, eat dinner with some of the members and then do various activities with volunteers from a number of the eating clubs (activities ranged from a gingerbread house building competition to lego robotics)," Velez said of PACA's work with Home Front last year.

Velez also listed several organizations with which PACA hopes to work in the future, including Habitat for Humanity and the educational organizations Let's Get Ready and Next Step, which both seek to prepare local high school students for the SATs and the college admissions process.

University students reach out in similar ways through Community House, an organization seeking to provide educational, cultural and recreational programs for underprivileged families and children in Princeton Borough and Township. Students in Community House volunteer in preschool programs, ESL tutoring and SAT prep classes.

Other organizations through which Princeton students contribute to the community include Rotaract, a subsidiary of the Rotary Club of Princeton, NJ, which belongs to Rotary International, and various denominational organizations associated with the Office of Religious Life.

With such a wealth of service opportunities available, it's no wonder a diverse group of students participate. Even a single organization such as the SVC attracts people of opposite ends of the socioeconomic, political and social spectrums, united by a "high level of commitment," noted SVC Director Dave Brown, who, prior to coming to Princeton, encountered University volunteers at Anchor House, the teen emergency shelter in Trenton where he worked.

"Many students from other schools are doing [community service] because it's required for class or because they need it to get into graduate school," he said, adding that Princeton students, by contrast, tend to be more self-motivated.

"Our community partners want Princeton students," Brown noted. "They figure [they] will be the senators, the executives who will address these issues in the future." Brown also stressed that keeping students' potential futures in mind is an element of the SVC's mission, since many Wilson School students and others are interested in policy, and by engaging in community service, they are more able to recognize needs in the community.

As students at the top university in the nation, we have the potential to contribute a lot to our communities, and thanks to the University's community service programs, many of us do.