Dana Fellerman
GEN 1033, Honors: Life of the Mind
Dr. McGovern
9.18.2014
On Saturday September 6th, 2014 I volunteered for Stockton’s semi-annual event called Day of Service where people sign up to do community work alongside several different groups and organizations either on campus or off campus. When arriving at the campus center to begin the day minutes before the event room was open, I signed in happily at the sign in table then went down the stairs to have a small breakfast which the staff provided before I received and changed into an official Day of Service shirt. I was ecstatic to see how many people were here that were willing to do volunteer work to help out a community.
When the doors opened, there were many choices to choose from and even more people massing into the room. Ultimately I decided to join the WaterWatch program with the Campus cleanup program they were offering today alongside a few of my campus friends that I have met during my SOAR experience as well as Welcome Week. WaterWatch is one of the many environment-friendly programs here at Stockton that aims to keep the Stockton campus and surrounding area green and clean. We were instructed to break up into groups of 10 and received gloves, trash bags, a trash pick-up device and told our assignments. My friends and I were assigned to clean the West Quad area and the areas surrounding the Campus Center. As we proceeded to the West Quad the group split off into two smaller groups to cover ground faster and more efficiently than one giant mass.
As we walked around the areas on campus, there were the occasional typical pieces of trash such as wrappers and bits of string or glass which were handled with care. The fact that Stockton has such a green campus is really amazing as it makes clean ups that are done by these environmental groups less stressful on their part. The most common trash item were cigarette butts as they were scattered in non-smoking areas such as common gathering places, the grass, smashed into parts of the pavement, or strewn about the permitted smoking gazebos as smokers carelessly or intentionally throw their used up cigarettes away on the ground or miss the cigarette disposal.
Although the morning was hot and we wore black t-shirts my friends and I had a lot of fun. We listened to music as a group and as we finished up our assigned area we helped others with their assignments before heading back to the campus center around 11 a.m. for lunch. Lunch was provided by the staff as well and during our lunch session we held a reflection session around one main topic – What did this service project mean to you? To me, this service project goes to show that something as simple as picking up trash can make a huge impact in the community. After attending the Day of Service I feel as if I have a personal sense of duty to help continue keeping Stockton a green campus by picking up trash and throwing it away properly. This Stockton experience was well worth all the work and effort put into it and it felt rewarding to give back to the Stockton Community.