USG plans community service this month

The USG’s April Month of Service, a project that aims to engage students in community service projects, began this week. The Month of Service was planned by the USG Community Service Committee as a part of their Campus Community Challenge initiative, launched in November.

The month includes a competition between the residential colleges to log the most service hours called “Clash of the Colleges: It’s Time to Serve” and a mural painting event during the two Princeton Preview weekends hosted by Akshata Shirahatti ’14. The painted cloth will be donated to a local elementary school or organization.

Later this month, USG will host a “Support the Troops” week and the Pace Council for Civic Values will organize an Inter-Club Community Fundraiser to further involve eating clubs in service.

Co-chair of the USG Community Service Committee Ashley Eberhart ’13 said in an email that the Month of Service was “an efficient way to publicize all of the opportunities available to students at large this spring” and that April offers “a hotbed of service opportunities.”

The Clash of the Colleges event was organized by Class of 2015 Senators Shawon Jackson ’15 and Deana Davoudiasl ’15. The residential college with the most service hours logged by freshmen and sophomores in April will win a party hosted by the USG. Students can report their service hours on ccc.tigerapps.org, where they can also find a list of service opportunities.

“We felt as the freshmen class senators that freshmen didn’t have a lot of access to service projects, and so even though the Pace Center does a very good job informing students … we wanted to take that extra step to make it easy for them,” Jackson explained.

Davoudiasl said her interactions with freshmen while campaigning for her current position also motivated the creation of the Month of Service.

“While going door-to-door campaigning in November, we discovered that many freshmen wanted more residential college spirit and also did not know about the USG’s Campus Community Challenge,” she explained in an email.

Davoudiasl said she hopes for about one hour of service per student during Clash of the Colleges, even though she noted that she is aware April is a busy month for students and that the month is considered a pilot project.

The second Inter-Club Community Fundraiser, organized by Eberhart, Haley White ’12 and Devon Barrett ’14, will take place during the last two weeks of April. Eating clubs will sponsor fundraisers and service events. Eberhart said that each eating club has agreed to participate.

Eberhart explained that the fundraisers will focus on education. The clubs will adopt classrooms through the website DonorsChoose.org, which connects givers to classrooms in need and performs service projects related to education.

The Month of Service is part of the USG’s Campus Community Challenge — or 3C — initiative, which was launched last November. As part of 3C, the Community Service Committee will publicize service opportunities from the Pace Center and other groups on campus, rather than running the USG’s own service projects.

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The 3C initiative was partly inspired by a similar community service program offered at The George Washington University.

Correction: Due to an editing error, a previous version of this story misattributed the organizers of this month's Inter-Club Community Fundraiser. The project is organized by the Pace Center for Civic Values. The 'Prince' regrets the error.