Tag Archives: SERV

Articles from the SERV board, giving you weekly opportunities to help out in your community.

SERV Activity Updates

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BARCC Walk for Change: Peer Advocates and Maire Keene
Olin and Babson are teaming up to register a team for the annual BARCC Walk for Change on Sunday, April 10th. Hop on a bus we’ll be organizing on Sunday morning with your friends and come join some 2000 allies who want to end sexual violence one step at a time. If interested, contact Maire Keene at maire@students.olin.edu or go to tinyurl.com/wfc2016 and sign up with coupon code BABSONWALK under the Babson & Olin College Team. There will be food trucks and lots of free swag! All student registration fees will be covered by SERV.

Peer Advocates:
PAs Rezzy and Maire were on a panel representing college student activists at a local high school this last Tuesday. Currently, the PA Application process is in the works. Please fill out the online survey (goo.gl/forms/72aVgntRI3) to give feedback on the applicants! Looking forward, the PAs are organizing an Olin-Babson team for the BARCC Walk for Change on Sunday April 10th (contact @Maire Keene with questions).

Red Cross Blood Drive: Led by Frances Devanbu and Ariana Olson
On Friday April 1st, the Red Cross will be on campus from 11:00am – 5:00pm to collect blood donations! Please sign up at the table in the dining hall to donate!

Cradles to Crayons: SERV Auction
SERV visited the Cradles to Crayons Giving Factory on March 24th! On Saturday, April 2nd from 10am – 2pm, Cradles to Crayons is hosting Needham Gives Back at Needham High School. Volunteers from the Needham community will sort, inspect, and pack donation items, making an impact on the lives of children in need of more support in Massachusetts! If you are interested in volunteering, please see the sign-up sheet (tinyurl.com/NeedhamGivesBack) in the SERV email!

The Daily Table: Service Activity Leadership by Emily Yeh
Volunteer at Daily Table in Dorchester! Daily Table is a nonprofit organization that sells affordable and healthy foods to people with low incomes. A group from Olin volunteers on Saturdays from 2-4pm. Look in your email to sign up (tinyurl.com/OlinDailyTable) for one or more shifts! If you have any questions, please contact Emily Yeh!

The Food Recovery Network: Led by Mackenzie Frackleton with GROW
The FRN is continuing to recover food from the dining hall. Drivers with cars or who can drive the Olin van are needed to help drive food to the Salvation Army of Framingham (35 Concord Street, Framingham, MA). Please contact Issac Vandor if you are interested!
The FRN is also going to discuss FRN leadership for next year. If you are interested, please contact Mackenzie.
If anyone wants to continue the FRN over the summer (they need to commit to donating food every two weeks and, ideally, be doing research at Olin), they should contact Mackenzie.

Freecycle: Led by Linnea with GROW
The GROW freecycle is designed to keep reusables goods out of landfills! Please donate clothing and other reusable items in the WH1 bins that will be available until the end of the semester. Anything that is not of value to you may be of value to someone else! If you see anything that you are interested in, feel free to take things that are of value to you. In the past, all of the items that are not claimed by the end of the summer have been donated to Goodwill, but GROW is exploring other options such as PlanetAid and are taking input from the community.

Youth CITIES: Andrew Holmes
Andrew has been mentoring for the Youth CITIES March to May Bootcamp every week, helping teach students how to leverage their local resources and define a business idea based around a specific problem they face in their community. Students are now working on their ventures in class, and Andrew is assigned to specific students to advise and help prepare for the final presentation and competition in front of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.

Big Brother Big Sister College Campus Program: Olin and Babson College
Max Wei and Justin Kunimune had only one outing with their littles this March due to spring break, but will be continuing to meet regularly until the end of the school year.

SERV Activity Updates

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BARCC Walk for Change: Peer Advocates and Maire Keene
Olin and Babson are teaming up to register a team for the annual BARCC Walk for Change on Sunday, April 10th. Hop on a bus we’ll be organizing on Sunday morning with your friends and come join some 2000 allies who want to end sexual violence one step at a time. If interested, contact Maire Keene at maire@students.olin.edu. All student registration fees will be covered by SERV.

The Daily Table: Service Activity Leadership by Emily Yeh
Want to help feed the low-income families? Volunteer at Daily Table in Dorchester! Daily Table is a nonprofit organization that sells affordable and healthy foods to people with low incomes. Volunteering times are flexible and transportation will be provided, courtesy of SERV! If you’re interested, please contact Emily Yeh!

Youth CITIES: Andrew Holmes
Andrew Holmes will be volunteering with Youth CITIES March-to-May Bootcamp on Saturdays from March 3rd to May 7th from 9am to Noon. He will be mentoring student participants in starting a venture, analyzing impact in the community, and determining how to make it financially sustainable while driving local change.

eDisco:Led by Mary Martin, Doyoung Lee, Shreya Rangarajan, Adam Coppola, Annabel Consilvio
So far this semester eDisco has been focusing on revitalizing our club and getting more members involved. We have worked with Scofield school to run multiple workshops and are working on planning activities for the rest of the semester. If you want to participate or have ideas for lessons then join the mailing list or contact any of the leaders.

The Food Recovery Network: Led by Mackenzie Frackleton with GROW
The FNR is continuing to recover food from the dining hall! The Olin group is looking for more drivers who are willing to help drive food to the Salvation Army of Framingham (35 Concord Street, Framingham, MA). Please contact Issac Vandor if you are interested!

Big Brother Big Sister College Campus Program: Olin and Babson College
Max Wei and Justin Kunimune have been continuing to meet once every 1-2 weeks. The first outing of the semester was to the Gallivan Housing Development, where all of the Littles live. Since then, theywe have been meeting at Babson as usual except for recently, when they took a field trip to go ice skating in the Boston Common.

Service Activity Updates at Olin!

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Brought to you by SERV

The Daily Table: Service Activity Leadership by Emily Yeh
Olin has started a volunteering partnership with Daily Table in Dorchester! Daily Table is a nonprofit organization with a mission: to provide healthy foods at prices that compete with fast food chains to people with low incomes. If you’re interested in helping Daily Table in feeding the needy, contact Emily Yeh!

Youth CITIES: Led by Andrew Holmes
Youth CITIES is a non-profit organization in Cambridge that offers a platform for cultivating entrepreneurship and fostering tech/artistic/social innovation in middle and high school students from any school or town. This spring Youth CITIES is hosting a March-to-May Bootcamp on Saturdays from March 3rd to May 7th from 9am to Noon. Students will work with entrepreneurs to start a venture, figure out how it impacts our local community, and determine how to make it financially sustainable while driving change. If you are interested in volunteering to mentor students, please contact Andrew Holmes.

eDisco:
This month eDisco worked with a Needham cub scout troop, teaching them about robotics and leading robotics themed activities. A big thank you to all of the students who helped make this program run so smoothly! We’re planning a lot of cool program for this new semester and we would love to have more people help out. We’re still making a lot of changes to the club, so if you have any ideas we’ll be having a meeting and inviting the whole school, so please attend and help improve the club! Contact Mary Martin or join the eDisco mailing list if you are interested!

The Food Recovery Network: Led by Mackenzie Frackleton with GROW
The FNR is starting up recoveries for this year! Please contact Issac Vandor if you want to get involved! The earlier the better!
The FRN just finished up our New Chapter Flurry, so if you know someone at another college who wants to start a chapter, refer them to us and we can help!
The FRN national dialogue, a conference on food recovery and sustainability, is from April 2nd – 4th in Maryland. Olin’s FRN is still accepting people interested in attending. Please contact Mackenzie Frackleton for details.

Big Brother Big Sister College Campus Program: Olin and Babson College
BBBS had a winter party before winter break, where Max Wei, Justin Kunimune and their Littles met up with all the other BBBS matches in the Greater Boston Area. There was pizza, a rock wall, a raffle, etc. They are still having their periodic outings with their Littles and other Babson Matches. Their first outing of the year was a potluck!

Service Updates at Olin

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SERV Auction: Thank you Shane Skikne, Amanda Sutherland, Michael Searing & Jennifer Wei!
Thank you again to Emily and Doyung for being great MCs at the Live Auction! Also thank you to Dhash Shrivathsa, Lauren Gulland, Linnea Laux, Isaac Vandor, Nicole Rifkin, Mel Chua, Ari Chae, Facilities, IT and the Dining Hall for the behind the scenes work in supporting the SERV auction! Our Olin community raised $12,446 for Cradle to Crayons. Our donation will support low-income or homeless children in our Greater Boston Community receive the supplies they need to thrive.

eDisco: In addition to the Bottle Rocket Workshop this November, we had another storybook engineering with some of the professor’s kids. We partnered with a local elementary school in their “understanding different abilities” workshop, which gets local community members to talk about their level of ability and has the students work with them to design something that would better their lives (look out for another one of these coming in the spring!). We are also continuing our work with Schoffield elementary school in December by helping them prototype a new curriculum that we come up with in our weekly workshops.

The Daily Table: Organization led by Emily Yeh
Olin plans to start a volunteering partnership with Daily Table in Dorchester, MA! Daily Table is a non-profit organization, founded by Doug Rauch, Olin Trustee and former CEO of Trader Joe’s, that aims to provide delicious, wholesome and affordable food that competes with fast-food prices to keep the food affordable for all customers.

GO Bike Fixing: Led by Sam Meyers, Linnea Laux with GROW
Have you ever had to search for a working GO bike? Do you want to help fix them? The GO bikes got pretty damaged over the summer, so we’re holding an event to help fix them. We’ll be working from 2-5pm on Friday, December 4.

The Food Recovery Network: Led by Mackenzie Frackleton with GROW
The entire Food Recovery Network has recovered 1 million pounds! Olin’s chapter will continue to contribute by donating untouched food from the dining hall every two weeks. Please contact Isaac Vandor or Mackenzie to get involved.

Big Brother Big Sister College Campus Program: Olin and Babson College Max Wei and Justin Kunimune have started meet with their corresponding Littles about thrice a month on Saturday to participate in various activities together.

“Universal Access” Adaptive Biking Program: Led by Mary Martin as part of Sara Hendren’s Assistive Adaptive Work
Sara and Mary are helping with the proposal of a new adaptive biking program in Cambridge on Memorial Drive next summer to make “Riverbend Park” more accessible to people with disabilities who want to use adaptive biking gear and other “universal” wheeled mobility. The future volunteer program, which is likely to occur on eight consecutive Sunday afternoons from late May to mid-July, will connect people who couldn’t ride bikes on their own with volunteers who can assist, creating both a fun activity for the people involved and raising awareness about accessibility.

Hula Hoops for Reducing Achievement Gap:
Do you remember the Hula-Hoops you may have decorated with colored tape? With help from Alison Black, SERV has donated the hula hoops to the Reducing Achievement Gap Program at the Wilson Elementary School in Framingham! Supported by the Jewish Family Service of Metrowest, the Reducing Achievement Gap program serves “Framingham’s most economically and educationally distressed young school children and families” with a unique multi-tiered program.

Service Updates

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SERV Auction: Led by Shane Skikne, Amanda Sutherland & Jennifer Wei
All SERV Auction proceeds will be going to Cradle to Crayons, a small local charity that helps provide children (from birth to 12 years) who are low-income or homeless with the supplies they need to thrive – at home, at school & play. Please donate your SERV auction item by Wednesday, November 4th! (Email or talk with the SERV committee to brainstorm ideas if you are stuck! Or visit the Ideation Sheet in the SERV Auction Item Donation Form email). The auction will run in the DH hallway from November 9th – 13th and the live auction will be held on November 13th during lunch from 12:30 – 1:30.

eDisco:
eDisco has been undergoing a lot of changes recently. We reorganized how our leadership is structured and are focusing more on creating great content for K-12 lessons. We are now leading workshops weekly about how to teach and how to make curriculum, and in the spring we will be bringing the newly created classes to schools and workshops. During this fall semester, we will still be doing our annual Bottle Rockets Workshop on November 14th as well as some experimental classes at a local elementary school. We are always open to new members, so if anyone is interested in education or wants to run fun workshops with kids, we would love to have you!

The Daily Table: Organization led by Emily Yeh
This November, Olin plans to start a volunteering partnership with Daily Table in Dorchester, MA! Daily Table is a non-profit organization, founded by Doug Rauch, Olin Trustee and former CEO of Trader Joe’s, that aims to provide delicious, wholesome and affordable food in a respectful manner. The organization offers “grab-and-go” meals and a variety of grocery items that compete with fast-food prices to keep the food affordable for all customers. If you would like more information or are interested in volunteering, please contact the Student Leader, Emily Yeh.

The Food Recovery Network: Led by Mackenzie Frackleton with GROW
Made their first delivery on Oct. 21st! They will be recovering the untouched food from the dining hall every two weeks. Please contact Isaac Vandor or Mackenzie to get involved.

Big Brother Big Sister College Campus Program: Olin and Babson College
Max Wei and Justin Kunimune have been matched with their Littles this October! In November, the Littles will be brought to Babson’s Campus to meet with their Big for on-campus activities every other Saturday.

Red Cross Blood Drive: Organized by Michael Resnick
With a total of 49 registered donors, the Red Cross collected 50 units of lifesaving blood!

Stop Hunger Now: Held by the Wellesley Rotary Club
Two Oliners participated in Wellesley Rotary Club’s “Stop Hunger Now” event on October 17th, in which twenty thousand meals were packaged to be sent to areas experiencing chronic or emergency malnourishment. Volunteers assembled bags each containing rice, soy protein, dehydrated vegetables, and vitamin supplements, then sealed, packed, and loaded the meals onto a truck to be sent to hunger-stricken areas. Great participation from the community allowed these 20k meals to be packaged in just two hours!

“Universal Access” Adaptive Biking Program: Led by Mary Martin as part of Sara Hendren’s Assistive Adaptive Work
Sara and Mary are helping with the proposal of a new adaptive biking program in Cambridge on Memorial Drive next summer to make the current weekly “Riverbend Park”—which closes all four lanes on Sundays from 12-6 in the summer—more accessible to people with disabilities who want to use adaptive biking gear and other “universal” wheeled mobility. The future volunteer program will connect people who couldn’t ride bikes on their own with volunteers who can assist, creating both a fun activity for the people involved and raising awareness about accessibility. The work involves creating a volunteer training and schedule, working with accessibility experts and the park district, getting donated or funded bikes of all kinds arranged, etc. Please talk to Mary Martin or Sara Hendren if you would like to learn more about the proposal and development of the program.

SERV can make transportation more accessible for people doing service activities off-campus! Please contact us for more information on transportation methods and support. To answer any service related questions, you can attend SERV office hours during SLAC or contact Kelly Brennan or Michael Searing.

Do you know of an upcoming service event or activity? Send an email to out to the carpeSERV email list at: carpeSERV@olin.edu

Service, Food, and Olin

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I’m excited to announce that Olin is launching its own chapter of the Food Recovery Network.
Over the past two semesters, we’ve been working to file permits and sign agreements to organize food collection from Sodexo to Framingham’s Salvation Army.

You might wonder what the Food Recovery Network is; We’re the largest student movement against food waste and hunger in America. FRN was founded by 3 students at the University of Maryland, College Park in 2011. During the Spring 2012 semester, the second FRN chapter was founded at Brown University, University of California, Berkeley, and Pomona College. May 2013, FRN gained funding to hire a full-time staff and transition to a professional nonprofit. There are currently 153 chapters across 37 states that have gathered a cumulative total of 944,224 pounds of food since 2011.

We’re going to be the 154th chapter after our second recovery this Wednesday, November 4th. So far, we recover every second Wednesday from our dining hall and have recovered about 28 pounds of food. We’re going to keep recovering with Sodexo here at Olin, and once we establish we’re going to look for additional partner organizations who will work with us to recover food. We’ve built up a great leadership team with Manik Sethi (Salvation Army Main Contact), Anisha Nakagawa (Sodexo and Grow Contact), Aaron Greiner (Sodexo and Grow Contact), Isaac Vandor (Volunteer Coordination), and me, Mackenzie Frackleton (Lead Coordinator).

If you ever want to help out as a volunteer, suggest a new venue for recovering food, or even start a chapter with another school, email us and let’s make something happen!

Service Activity Updates at Olin!

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Red Cross Blood Drive: Organized by Michael Resnick
On Friday, October 16th the Red Cross will be on campus from 11:00am to 5:00pm to collect blood donations!
To volunteer at the registration desk and snack table, which needs about 10 people, or to donate blood please see Michael’s email for the sign-up sheet and more information.

Big Brother Big Sister College Campus Program: Olin and Babson College
Two Oliners are participating as a Big!
The Bigs have been assigned will travel to their Little’s community for their first meeting in the third week of October!

E-Disco:
Adam and Doyung have spent the summer working on renovating the E-Disco/SERV stockroom to create a better space to support collaboration and ideation for their events and activities in the community.
The E-Disco team spent the summer restructuring the program. More experienced E-Disco member will mentor new members in designing a course, connecting with interesting schools, and teaching their course.
E-Disco members will do weekly or bi-weekly activities, such as Bottle Rockets and Storybook Engineering throughout the Fall.

Jimmy Fund Walk: Olin College Group organized by Sally Phelps
On Sunday, Sept. 27th, 8 members of the Olin community walked 13 miles (2nd half of the Boston Marathon) in honor of Michael Moody, Olin’s former VP of Academic Affairs, as well as other friends and family members who have fought, or are currently fighting cancer!
You can still help the team by donating up until October 19th! Please contact Sally Phelps for the team page.

Hub on Wheels: Organized by Human-Powered Vehicle
On Sunday, September 20th, eight Oliners (and two alum!) volunteered at the Hub on Wheels bike ride in Boston, some helping at registration and others riding as bike marshals.

Peer Advocates: Team of Twelve Students; Led by Ellie Funkhouser and Jessica Diller
The Peer Advocates team has been busy getting trained and planning community outreach and education and seminar events within Olin and with outside advocate organizations like BARCC, REACH, and Babson and Wellesley peer advocate programs

“Universal Access” Adaptive Biking Program: Led by Mary Martin as part of Sara Hendren’s Assistive Adaptive Work
Sara and Mary are proposing a new adaptive biking program in Cambridge on Memorial Drive next summer has been proposed to make the current weekly “Riverbend Park”—which closes all four lanes on Sundays from 12-6 in the summer—more accessible to people with disabilities who want to use adaptive biking gear and other “universal” wheeled mobility.
The future volunteer program will connect people who couldn’t ride bikes on their own with volunteers who can assist, creating both a fun activity for the people involved and raising awareness about accessibility. The work involves creating a volunteer training and schedule, working with accessibility experts and the park district, getting donated or funded bikes of all kinds arranged, etc.
Talk to Mary Martin or Sara Hendren if you would like to learn more about the proposal and development of the program

The Food Recovery Network: Led by Mackenzie Frackleton with GROW
Partnering with the Food Recovery Network to donate uneaten, prepared food from the dining hall to the Salvation Army to combat both wasted food and hunger
Currently scheduling the first date for donation!

Reusable Travel Mugs in the DH: Led by Ruby Spring, Celina Berkins, Anisha Nakagawa and Aaron Greiner with GROW
Waiting on the final purchasing permission to get reusable cups in the DH to reduce the number of disposable cups used
Will be looking for volunteers to help collect mugs from bins in the dorms and AC in the Fall

SERV can make transportation more accessible for people doing service activities off-campus! Please contact us for more information on transportation methods and support if you are interested.

Do you participate in service-related activity within or outside of Olin? If so and you would like your work to be included in Service Updates in future Frankly Speaking issues, please email Kelly Brennan & Michael Searing.

Service Updates at Olin

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Service Activity Updates at Olin!
Doctors Without Borders: Olin Community
The $9,719.62 from the SERV auction has been officially donated to Doctors Without Borders to help them deliver emergency medical aid to those in conflict, epidemics, and disasters – such as the most recent Nepal earthquake.

E-Disco: Led by Doyung, Aditi, Cecelia & Toni
Have been designing and leading weekly designing activities with JFK Elementary School in Jamaica Plain throughout the semester
Held engineering workshops: Wellesley STEM Expo, Storybook Engineering, Discovery Museum, Disabilities Design and final Saturday Workshop!
Annabel, Paul, Shreya and Mary will join the leadership team in the Fall and they are figuring out future activities

Oxfam Hunger Banquet: Led by Aaron Greiner and Anisha Nakagawa
Talk by Doug Rauch, Olin Trustee member and former president of Trader Joes, on founding the Daily Table, which will bring affordable nutrition to the underserved in our cities by recovering excess food and selling it at low-cost
Hunger Banquet to promote discussion around hunger worldwide

The Food Recovery Network: Led by Mackenzie Frackleton with GROW
Partnering with the Food Recovery Network to donate uneaten, prepared food from the dining hall to the Salvation Army to combat both wasted food and hunger
Currently scheduling the first date for donation!

Reusable Travel Mugs in the DH: Led by Ruby Spring, Celina Berkins, Anisha Nakagawa and Aaron Greiner with GROW
Working to have travel mugs available in the DH to reduce the number of disposable cups used
Will be looking for volunteers to help collect mugs from bins in the dorms and AC in the Fall

Red Cross Blood Drive: Organized by Michael Resnick
Olin community helped around 99 people when 44 community members donated blood late March!

Peer Advocates: Team of Twelve Students; Led by Ellie Funkhouser and Jessica Diller
The Peer Advocates team has been busy selecting next year’s new PAs, getting training (and some orientation activities!) ready, and planning community outreach and involvement events.

Teaching 5th Graders: Gabrielle Ewall and Mitch Cieminski
Finished up teaching fourth grade students cryptography in Math League; lessons covered: Caesar ciphers, RAE encryption, and Scytales

Vecna Cares Robot Race: David Elkan, Mitch Cieminski, Alex Crease, Celina Bekins
Built a robot to participate in a robot race hosted by Vecna Technologies. All proceeds benefit Vecna Cares Charitable Trust, a non-profit dedicated to better health outcomes around the world through better technology solutions.

Blankets for Project Linus:
All blankets are completed thanks to EH1’s study break and various blanket adopters (Philicia, Celina, and Susie)!

“Earn-A-Bike” at Bikes Not Bombs: Rosy as an Adult Instructor
Teaching bicycle mechanics and social justice theory and practice to youth, who build a bicycle from the frame up over the course of the program

Upcoming Activities to Look Forward to!
Big Brothers Big Sisters College Campus program beginning September and October 2015 – Questions? Please contact Michael Searing at Michael.Searing@students.olin.edu

Do you participate in service-related activity within or outside of Olin? If so and you would like your work to be included in Service Updates in future Frankly Speaking issues, please email Kelly.Brennan@students.olin.edu & Michael.Searing@students.olin.edu .

SERV: More Than Words

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This is the first installment of a monthly spotlight on volunteering opportunities in the Boston area. We’ll share the stories of organizations as well as how you can get involved! Feel free to email david.zhu@students.olin.edu for your thoughts and feedback to help me continually improve this segment.

About

If you want to empower disadvantaged youth through real-world skills such as business and interview training, More Than Words (MTW) is the perfect place to help. The organization helps youth “who are in foster care, court involved, homeless or out of school to take charge of their lives by taking charge of a business.” More Than Words does this by creating a chain of bookstores that sell donated books. More importantly, the bookstore is completely run by the at-risk teens enrolled in the program. Organizers, staff, and other volunteers help and train these young adults with the entrepreneurial and people skills that they need to succeed once they graduate from the program.

Impact

More Than Words accepts at-risk adolescents who are 16-21 years-old who have “compounding risk factors and are in need of an empowering life experience” to help them rise above their current situation.

84% have recent or current involvement with the foster care system.

54% have recent or current court involvement.

~80% do not have their GED and are either not pursuing or struggling in school.

More Than Words proactively collects data to track its program’s effectiveness. 83% of MTW graduates have received or plan to receive their GED/diploma, compared to the 18% who had a GED/diploma before participating in the program. Also, 34% of graduates have enrolled in postsecondary education compared to 5% prior (illustrated in the graph below). Similarly, work-school engagement rises to 83% from 5% before the program (see the graph on the facing page). “While approximately 50% of youth come to MTW with court-involvement, this number drops to 28% when they leave the program and continues to drop to 10% within 24 months after the core program.”

Francis, a veteran of MTW, writes: “Before I came to MTW, I was getting in a lot of trouble, became court involved, and wasn’t going to school. While I was at MTW, I really enjoyed getting work experience. I learned how to give excellent customer service and how to be professional, and got my GED. I really appreciated all of the love at More Than Words. They helped me get the things I needed in life and helped me stay on track. When I transitioned, I got an internship at a hotel and now I just got a job at Bentley College. I’m working hard on my education. Education is very important to me now because I know that having an education can take you far in life.”

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History

Jodi Rosenbaum started More Than Words “after a friend saw a pile of books on the side of the road.” Jodi states: “We realized those books were worth money and a hands-on way to empower youth with real-world skills… I am particularly passionate about adolescents who are system-involved and typically seen as liabilities rather than assets. For over 15 years I have worked in the public schools, juvenile courts, and nonprofit sector and have seen so many kids fall through the cracks despite good intentions. I think too often our efforts to help focus too much on trying to fix problems or remediate. That’s what has ignited my passion. I see youths with skills and untapped potential. It is exciting to be part of a model that focuses on how to empower a spark, a hope, and that gives an opportunity for youth to do it for themselves” [1].

Do Something

All in all, More Than Words is a great social venture where you can directly help up-and-coming adults with relevant skills so that they can also become contributors to society. There are various options to participate. For a one-time thing, you can assist as a mock interviewer and give feedback to the program members to improve their interview skills. You can also run a small workshop! (Think about some really helpful things you’ve learned while at Olin.) Finally, you can get involved on a weekly or monthly basis, working with the youth managing the store or being an educational coach.

If you are interested in volunteering at MTW, let’s come together and help out as a team. SERV will connect you with other Oliners who also want to participate. Find out more about More Than Words at www.mtwyouth.org, check out the upcoming carpe, and/or talk about it during our daily tabling sessions!

Citations
[1] http://www.jewishboston.com/Molly-Parr/blogs/3857-four-questions-with-jodi-rosenbaum-executive-director-of-more-than-words
[2] https://www.mtwyouth.org/

A Survey on Service at Olin

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This month we asked the student body a few questions to understand how service is currently being pursued at Olin. (All good design comes from good research!) We would like to share with you some of our findings and also how we can proceed as a community doing service.
Some quantitative questions we asked were:
Do you have an individual service project you are currently doing? If yes, what is the service activity called? If not, what are some areas of opportunities you may be interested in volunteering in? If you have a specific service activity in mind, what is the name?

We were happy to receive 66 responses to the survey. The distribution of people who currently identify themselves as service participators is shown Figure 1 to the right.

fs-mar_service1According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, the college student volunteering rate across the country lies at 30.5% and is 30.7% in Massachusetts. Nationally, the median annual volunteering hours per college student is 40 hours, and “44.1% of college student volunteers engage in ‘regular’ volunteering (volunteering 12 or more weeks a year with their main organization)” [1]. This demonstrates that we, as a college, have a lot of room for improvement!

The results from our survey show that 82% of people who are interested in doing service are not actually engaging in it, suggesting that service opportunities are not easily accessible for students at Olin. We want to improve to follow the fifth founding precept from the Franklin W. Olin foundation: “The college, itself, the product of philanthropy, should find ways to contribute to its community and beyond… Policies must be maintained that support these outcomes.”

For those of us who are currently participating in service, the activities that we currently do include (but are not limited to): Edisco, HonorBoard, JFK Elementary School, Food Recovery Network, Math League, therapeutic riding, Brigham and Women’s hospital, regularly donating blood, and being a peer advocate. (Email us at SERV@olin.edu to let us know of a service you do that we missed!)

For Oliners who are currently not sure how to volunteer, the graph in Figure 2 demonstrates interest in the following sectors. fs-mar_service2Among these results, there were also other interests, including: professional applications of my engineering abilities, retirement homes/hospice, robotics, social justice, sporting events, youth art centers, and any other under-served group.

So now knowing what we can improve on and also what we are interested in, how should we move forward? Last month, Service Pursuits were introduced to help students get assistance and funding to participate in any service activity they are interested in. As we brought this new opportunity to the student body, we realized that many people loved the freedom and support that they now have. However, many of us don’t know where to start.
It takes time for us to find the right service we want to pursue, and with our busy lifestyles, finding service may quickly become marginalized. So to make this process even simpler, here are some strategies.

SERV members will be tabling every week from Monday to Thursday – come talk to us if you have any interest in trying a service pursuit! Not only do we process your requests, we are also here to help you form them.
Talk with friends and see what kind of service they are participating / want to participate in! We can help each other find opportunities that really engages us.

Expect to see some more informative documents/emails in the next few weeks. We are currently in the process of taking our research and creating a simple experience for everyone to find the service that matches their interests.
Give us feedback! Honesty is the most important aspect of this whole process, and without your thoughts and opinions, we can’t become the best service community that we aspire to be. Come talk with us in the dining hall or anytime, or email us at SERV@olin.edu.

I’m excited to see the next chapter of our service story at Olin, and I hope you are too!

Citations
[1] http://www.nationalservice.gov/pdf/06_1016_RPD_college_full.pdf
[2] http://www.volunteeringinamerica.gov/rankings/States/College-Student-Volunteer-Rates/2013