Pace Center releases plan for USG funds

The Pace Center has finalized plans for distributing an estimated $90,000 in USG funds, nearly half of which will be spent on a week-long service initiative in Trenton for between 150 and 200 students over Intersession, the center announced in a statement on Thursday.

The money was donated to the center after students passed referenda last spring allocating the USG funds normally used for Lawnparties events and USG pilot projects to the Pace Center. That money “will support 10 initiatives in the program areas of healthy neighborhoods, educational inequity, responding to community needs and immersion experiences focusing on service,” according to the statement.

A 15-member student steering committee recommended the allocation of funds, which was finalized earlier this week.

In the area of healthy neighborhoods, the committee chose to support two programs: Send Hunger Packing and KaBOOM! The committee allocated $3,500 for Send Hunger Packing, which links 10 student volunteers each week with 150 schoolchildren, who are provided with food for weekends and holidays from a food bank. Another $2,000 will be spent on food and supplies for the KaBOOM! project, which constructed a playground in the John Witherspoon School neighborhood on Sept. 26 with several student volunteers from the Class of 2012.

The education inequity projects and activities include Generation One, Book and Build, the Writer’s Ace and Science Education Enrichment.

The steering committee will spend $1,200 on program expansion for Generation One, a Community House academic support program in which 25 University volunteers provide up to 50 high school students with college preparation and application guidance. Book and Build, which will receive $1,800 for supplies, is an expansion of Princeton Engineering Education for Kids, a program in which Princeton students teach children basic principles of engineering using Lego robotics kits. Another $3,200 will go to transportation and supplies for The Writer’s Ace, a new program that provides writing workshops and tennis lessons to roughly 20 local students. The committee also allocated $1,500 for supplies and volunteer training for Science Education Enrichment, which will be provided to minority students through Community House’s After School Academy.

Under responding to community needs, the committee has allocated $15,000 to fund and support new service projects proposed by students who are not already involved in existing organizations.

Funds for immersion experiences include $40,000 for the Inter-Action 2010 Intersession trip to Trenton. The committee also included $12,000 for The College Awareness program, which, in conjunction with alumni group ReachOut 56-81, will send University students to advise high school students throughout New York about post-secondary opportunities. An additional $12,000 will go to fund the BreakOut Princeton civic action trips.

“It is the hope of the committee members that the new service initiatives that will be supported by the USG funds will give flexibility to the student body, allowing them to decide how and when they can become civically engaged,” steering committee member Jane Yang ’11 said in the statement.

The steering committee, which met from late spring to early fall, was composed of student representatives from the USG and the Pace Center.