Category Archives: Service

Fall Day of Service

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One of the annual events at Stockton University is the Day of Service which was on the 9th of September this year. The Day of Service began in the Main Campus Center where breakfast was served and students signed their names with a black sharpie on name tags. The purpose of the Day of Service was to inspire students to give back to the community. The fall Day of Service is one of the first events hosted by the university to kick-start the events the university has to offer throughout the year. After breakfast, everyone went into the Campus Event Room where the plans for the day were explained. The day was split up into four different parts which composed of going to a political event, making crafts for Ronald McDonald house, making crafts for the wellness center for suicide prevention while lunch was served, and the last part of the day was filled packing bags of rice packages.

Based on the color of the name tags, everyone was split up into four groups and sent off to their first destination which was in the lower F-wing hallway. The first part of the political event consisted of polling, where students were given four choices: strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, and strongly disagree. Based on their choices, students had to line themselves into groups on how they felt about the statement that was being said. After completing this poll, students spent their time doing various of things such as signing up to vote, writing on a large piece of paper about what environmental changes or concerns they have, and getting a pin.

Soon enough, it was time to change activities and go to the second activity. Going back to the Campus Event Room, everyone was given a choice of doing whatever craft they wanted to complete for the Ronald McDonald house. At this time, four volunteers were chosen from the group to make peanut butter jelly sandwiches for local people in need of food. During the craft event, most of the girls were found at one of the tables making intricate bracelets for the children at the hospital to wear. Others were putting together coloring books for children to color in. Some people were helping to make pillows that were going to go to people in need of them. As the music played, everyone worked diligently until the end of that activity.

Upon arriving at the third activity, which was located by Dunkin Donuts, lunch was served. While eating, everyone started to work on the crafts for the wellness center for suicide prevention. There were hundreds of rocks that were expected to be painted about suicide prevention. Also, people received small circular pieces of paper to draw and write inspirational messages on for suicide prevention. These small pieces of paper were then transformed into pins. In the coming weeks, the rocks were seen displayed throughout campus, and the pins were distributed to the students, who hanged the pins on their backpacks.

The last activity for the day was packing rice packages for malnutrition countries. The process started with putting a certain amount of rice, beans, and vitamins in a bag. These bags were then passed to the next station where people put enough rice to get the bag to a certain weight. After these bags were accurately weighed, the bags were sealed and placed in boxes to be shipped. One group alone made ten thousand bags for people in need in third world countries so together as a college a difference was made in the world. The day ended back in the Campus Center Event room, where students reflected over what was achieved throughout the day through a survey.

Toys for Tots Shopping

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One of the things that the Honors Program does each semester is a service event that is run by honors students. This semester’s service event was Toys for Tots. Toys for Tots is a fundraiser that collects toys for less fortunate children. Honors t-shirts were sold in order to raise money to buy the toys. Around $280 was raised from selling shirts. On Sunday, November 26 some honors students got together to go toy shopping. Before going toy shopping, everyone met up in the campus center where which toy store we were going to was discussed. Since some students did not have cars on campus, everyone who had a car ended up carpooling with the students who did not have a car, on their way to Toys“R”Us. On the way to Toys“R”Us one car was following the other, since not many people knew where the store was located.

Upon getting to Toys“R”Us, all the students met up at the front entrance of the store to discuss what needed to be done. Also, people were split into groups of 3 and were assigned age groups of kids that the toys needed to be for. For example, one group was assigned infants while another group was assigned 12 to 13-year-olds. Each group was told that they could spend approximately $45 dollars to get high quality, age-appropriate toys for the age group they were assigned. Everyone split up into their groups and went to go search for some toys. After everyone picked out the toys, everyone met at the front of the store, where all the toys were organized and taken a picture of. Also, a picture of the students that went to the shopping was taken. One of the things that many people discovered during this trip was the fact that toy shopping is expensive since most people got 3 large toys for around $45 to $50. Then all the toys were ringed up altogether when it was discovered that the bill was higher than the amount of money that was raised. Thankfully, the cashier decided to provide a 15% off coupon that brought the total down to the amount that could be covered by the money raised. Everyone drove back to Stockton, where all the toys that were bought were put into the Toys for Tots boxes that are around campus.

Honors Requirements

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If I am being completely honest, I had no idea the requirements for the Honors Program were due at the end of the semester. I thought I had all the time in the world to get them done (before the end of the year). However, at class Wednesday morning, Professor Duntley sent me into a tailspin. He started talking about the service requirements the class had been doing throughout the semester, and I did some things. I wasn’t sitting around doing nothing, but I was nowhere near where I had to be. I had never felt more panicked here than I did after that class. It was nice to know I wasn’t the only one who had completely dropped the ball so far. My friend Rachel (who was also completely shocked at this new discovery) and I devised a plan to get all of our requirements out of the way with only two weeks to spare.

On my sheet, I already had one Honors Activity (an honors meeting), a dialogue (the Convocation), and an ongoing volunteer activity being a tutor for young kids. However, to me in my moment of crisis it seemed as if I had done nothing and this was the end of my stay in the Honors Program. Luckily for me, Rachel had done even less than me which made me feel a little better about where I stood. I started planning out what I could do as soon as I got back to my dorm, and as I started looking at the different dialogues I could attend in order to get credit, I started to feel better and better because there were so many that would count as an event.

I am not in the business of procrastinating getting stuff done though. I like things to be done weeks before they are supposed to in order to give me peace of mind. I decided I would go to the first possible thing, which happened to be the next day. Working with Children and Families in Social Welfare just happened to be the next event, and also the only one I could see myself remotely being interesting in and wanting to sit through. It was an hour long event, 5-6, and upon my arrival I got a very nice surprise. They were serving pizza, drinks, and dessert at this event, which was a plus for me. There were a ton of people in the room, and there were almost not enough seats for everyone, and I later found out that was because it was required for another class to attend this event for extra credit.

I got my pizza and sat in the first seat I saw and patiently waited for the speakers to begin with the PowerPoint that was on the board, but they never did. They didn’t use the PowerPoint at all during the presentation, and they did not just tell the audience what they do and how they help people. They actually spoke to the audience in a way that would spark a conversation among everyone, and the people in the crowd were loving it. There were so many questions I couldn’t keep up and I almost felt bad for the speakers because the questions were flying in from every angle.

Towards the end of the talk, some people who were clearly just there to get the extra credit and didn’t care about anything the speakers were saying began to get up and leave as the presentation was still happening. I found this to be extremely rude because it was ten to 6 o’clock and they only had to wait ten more minutes before the presentation was over. However, the people getting up to leave did not seem to faze the presenters in the slightest (probably because it was clear that most of the room was extremely interested in what they were saying). When they had said all they needed to say, and the questions ceased, everyone started to occasionally get up and walk either out of the room or towards the presenters to ask them more questions, and I patiently waited my turn to get them to sign my paper and tell them how surprisingly interested I was in their presentation.

Overall, I have almost completed my requirements form, and therefore am not in crisis mode anymore, but being forced to go to this presentation turned out to be more fun and rewarding than I ever would have imagined.

Seize the Day: Day of Service

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On September 9, 2017,  my four roommates laid comfortably in bed as I readied myself for the day, knowing that what I was about to embark on was even more blissful than sleep.

The Stockton Day of Service is an annual event that demonstrates the importance of service. Over 450 volunteers came out to “exit [their] comfort zones,” as put by Stockton’s Associate Provost. My group of 40, so designated by our red-colored name tags, were promised an hour in each project, hoping that one would be the “launch pad” for a commitment to service. We first headed to work in civic engagement with the Service Learning Department. Activities included taking a Naturalization Test and publicly displaying our political opinion. When we “voted with our feet,” I spoke on the issue of free college tuition. I left the event confident in having spoken for what I stand for. With Circle K, we were able to help the local community. We made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the A.C. Rescue Mission. We were guaranteed that the sandwiches are “appreciated,” even when imperfect. It was uplifting to help the my local community. In the afternoon, we learned about Cerebral Palsy with Alpha Lambda Delta. There, we constructed ribbons for the cause. Having had a cousin with Cerebral Palsy, I was particularly engaged in this activity. The final event of the day was to help end world hunger. Our group personally packed 10,000 meals, rounding out the 45,000 meals made that day for those suffering from starvation.

The Day of Service turned out to be the best way to spend my Saturday. I cannot wait for next year!

Stockton University’s Day of Service Event

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Today I participated in Stockton University’s Day of Service event for 2017. Before I begin, I want you to understand the importance of me going: First of all, report time was 8am; so that alone shows my dedication to the cause because Alayna Dilks does not wake up before 9am for just anything. I had to wake up super early on a Saturday morning, without any coffee in my system, but I will admit that it was all totally worth it.

To start off the event, my group of friends and I were making coloring books for the Ronald McDonald House. The Ronald McDonald House is a charity that directly helps the families of children who are bound to hospital beds. This task was super important to me, personally, because this charity helped my aunt and her family with their housing situation when my cousin was ill in a hospital far from their home. Along with assembling the coloring books, we wrote inspirational quotes on the covers and added fun colors to it to try and be uplifting.

The second activity that we did was button making. This activity was created because September 10th is National Suicide Prevention Day. To participate in this activity, we wrote uplifting messages and colored with bright colors on pieces of round paper and they were eventually turned into buttons. While making the buttons, my friends and I just discussed the sadness behind depression and how our friends and families have been affected. Suicide is something that it not often talked about, so it was nice to put our thoughts out into the open regarding the topic.

The most important activity, in my opinion, was with the “Rise For Hunger” charity. At this activity, we all were put into stations and worked together to fill and package bags of rice mixtures. There is honestly no way to appropriately describe the event, because it was honestly a hoot. the event organizers also played loud music which made it really enjoyable. My job during the event was to weigh the bags of rice and make sure that they weighed the right amount. During the fast process, I was thinking about how many people this activity would directly benefit. At the end of the day, the coordinator of the charity announced that Stockton had packaged over 46,000 meals for the less fortunate. Hearing that number brought joy to my heart.

Yes, initially I had done the event for the honor’s service requirement and the free t-shirt(which I am currently wearing as I write this), but my heart and soul has changed since this event. I have learned to appreciate my life and to be thankful for what I have. I learned to be grateful for the way that I think and for knowing what happiness feels like. But I am also now aware of the sad reality that some people live in. Stockton University’s Day of Service is something that I thoroughly enjoyed and will definitely be apart of in the years to come.

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Afternoon of Service

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October 10th 2016 Stockton held an afternoon of service. Commuters on the Go organized this event and allowed both commuters and residents to attend. There were three things that you could do to volunteer at this event. You could sew teddy bears for children with cancer, make heart bags for Mother’s Day at a retirement home, or make birthday cards for homeless children. This was a great event and a great opportunity to get involved and make a difference in the world.
The afternoon of service allowed students to do things to help other, but also had a reflection session as well. The people running the session said that each station represented a problem that people were facing. The problems were: homelessness for children, cancer patients dealing with the terrible disease, and the elderly not having a family to celebrate or visit on Mother’s Day. Each one of these problems were out of the person’s control and they wanted us to experience what it was like to have something go wrong as well. They made us write the person that was most important to us, an object that was most important to us, and a character trait that was most important to us on sticky notes. We then had to give those three notes to someone else and they took one and threw it away. The Commuters on the Go people then asked us how we felt about what we had lost, and had us reflect on what our lives would be like without that thing. The reflection session really opened my eyes to how truly lucky I am. I was so glad I was able to volunteer my time and hopefully make a difference in someone’s life.

Day of Service

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On September 10th 2016, Stockton held its annual day of service. The office of student development, Circle K, and other local organizations sponsored this worthwhile event. This event had several different volunteering opportunities, such as Books Without Borders, Stop Hunger Now and making cards for terminally ill children. This event was a great example of how Stockton gives back to the community. There are many clubs that do community service, and this event was a way to meet several of them.
The day of service was very well organized and efficient. There was never a time where one of the events didn’t run smoothly. The Books Without Borders station was extremely well organized. My two friends and I enjoyed getting a lot of work done in a short amount of time because of the assembly-line-style setup. Making cards for the terminally ill children was very upsetting, yet very rewarding at the same time. Everyone hoped that the card would brighten up a child’s day. The stop hunger now section was like a Viking ship, where everyone rowed in unison. Dozens of students and volunteers churned away effortlessly as we created over 3,000 meals in only a half an hour. It was amazing to see so many people volunteer hours of their time and all connect over helping others.
I am happy that my friends and I decided to do that event. It was a great event to help out others and it was very well organized. Since this event is annual, I can see myself volunteering at this event in the future. I would recommend this event to anyone who is looking to make a difference in the community but doesn’t know how to go about it.

Winter Extravaganza

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On November 15th 2016, Stockton held an afternoon of service. Commuters on the Go organized this event and allowed both commuters and residents to attend. This event was focused on making ornaments for senior citizens to hang on Christmas trees. We also made foam cut outs of different Christmas themed characters, such as Rudolph, Santa, and Frosty the Snowman.
The Winter Extravaganza, as the Commuters on the Go named it, was a lot of fun. Both Commuters and Residents were able to sing Christmas music and make ornaments. Although it isn’t quite Christmas yet, the event reminded everyone how close the holiday actually was. This event was great, not only because of the merriness spread by the activities and singing, but also because it was for a great cause. Often times the senior citizens don’t get to experience the joy of hanging up ornaments with their families during the holiday season. The other seniors at the senior citizen centers become a second family to them. The ornaments that we bonded over while making them as a group are the same ornaments that the senior citizens bond over while hanging them up. It is amazing to think about how two simple hours of singing Christmas music, joking around, and making ornaments can translate into making someone’s holiday. The Winter Extravaganza is an excellent example of the fun and helpful events organized by Stockton Organizations.

Beach Sweep

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On October 19th a large amount of students from Stockton College and people in the Atlantic City community got together in front of the Rain Forest Café on the Atlantic City boardwalk at 9:00am to participate in the Atlantic City Beach Sweep.  We all stood there listening to brief speeches on why Clean Ocean Action hosts beach sweeps and what you can do to stay involved.  As you may have guessed, they host beach sweeps to keep the beaches clean and help keep the environment healthy and clean and to help the marine life thrive.

After these speeches, we got into groups of two and three, grabbed some trash bags, a few recycle bags, a t-shirt, and a checklist and walked on the beach eager to get started.  Each time we saw some trash, we picked it up and checked off what we picked up.  The point of checking off the items and keeping track of how many of each thing we picked up was so that it can be tallied and recorded for future reference.  We were informed that each time a beech sweep is done, the information on the trash picked up is recorded and from that there have been many laws and regulations passed to help prevent trash build up and pollution on the beaches.

After picking up garbage for about two and a half hours, we all carried our full bags up to the boardwalk and took pictures to savor the moment.  While we were taking pictures the Barenaked Ladies set up and got ready to perform a small show for all of the people who worked to clean up the beach that morning.  They helped out on the beach sweep but were pretty sneaky about it.  Spotting them was definitely the challenge of the day.  Yet, when it was all over they sang their hearts out for us performing almost every request and making jokes the whole time about the trash.

After they finished performing, we all whistled and clapped thanking them for playing just for us and for their help cleaning up the beach.  It didn’t really seem like they wanted to take pictures or sign autographs but after running up and asking they said of course and I was able to sneak away with a picture with the lead singer.

All in all it was a lot of fun.  The beach wasn’t nearly as polluted as I thought it was going to be so it was actually tons of fun.  It kind of felt like a treasure hunt…except the treasure was trash.  But, looking back it was so much fun and getting to see the Barenaked Ladies afterwards made it even better.  I would totally do it again.

Serving the Community

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As many of you may already know, Stockton recently held it’s 10th annual Day of Service.  I, like many others, attended.  Being a freshman and not having any sort of idea what was going on made the whole process slightly confusing.  I completely forgot that I had pre-registered, so when I walked in the door and saw a huge line of people I was, at the very least, confused.  Asking around, only a few people realized that they were in fact standing in line for a reason.  When I asked why we were in line, most people just looked at me and shrugged.

After getting my sheet of paper and “signing in,” we were all off to breakfast! Yay breakfast! There was such a lovely array of scrumptious foods that I didn’t really know what to pick.  But that’s beside the point.  Once breakfast was finished, all of us service people traveled up to the event room and started to find groups which we were interested in devoting our day to.  We tried to find groups who were doing things that were fun or high up on our list of okay things to do in life rather than at the top of our hate list.

I decided to work with the Covenant House service group for the day.  The description of our activities soon to come included but was certainly not limited to yard work.  Once I read the sign in which the description was posted, I cringed slightly inside.  Yard work is definitely not something I love to do.  So, I was fairly skeptical but I mean really, how much yard work can anybody actually do in Atlantic City?  Where is there yard to work on there anyway?  So I sat down and waited to start the journey.

After we got to Covenant House, we put all of our stuff down and the woman in charge of volunteer work gave us an overview of what Covenant House stands for and why they do what they do.  Basically they take in 18 to 21-year-old men and women who came from a bad place or don’t exactly have the best past and give them the opportunity to become educated and get their lives back on track.  Everything is free for the men and women who stay there; all that is asked of these men and women is that they become what they want to become.  After she finished giving us this message, she sent us to work.

We went out to the courtyard with shovels, rakes, gloves, mulch, and garbage bags and picked up all of the trash that was lying around and under the bushed and then we laid down mulch to make the area look nicer. Then we weeded the gardens around the perimeter so that there were only flowers and shrubs left.  Once we finished that we moved dirt from a flower tier that had started to fall apart into four others to fill the four other tiers and take down the one that was starting to fall apart.  After we finished, we ate our lunch and had a reflection session where we talked about what our service means to others and why it’s such a nice thing to do.

We concluded the day with a walk on the boardwalk in search of other service groups in need of assistance.  We came across two other groups but they didn’t really need our help.  So we drove back to Stockton and that concluded the 10th annual Day of Service at Stockton.