Category Archives: Service

Not a PAL: Make a Difference Day Flops

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Make a Difference Day starts with good intentions. Community projects that need volunteers to do work that full-time volunteers cannot accomplish. A few other students and I chose to help the Police Athletic League. The PAL helps underprivileged children, providing activities for them that they would have never had otherwise. One program that was cited was their robotics groups, where children built robots for competitions.

From the beginning, things began to go downhill. The person who was supposed to meet with us was absent, and his replacement tried to fill in the best he could. It honestly seemed like they expected more people to arrive, and the tasks we were given did not align with what the description for the event told. We were not told to bring gloves, but we were then told off for not bringing any. Another volunteer and I weeded a garden, while another group collected rocks so they would not get caught in the lawnmower. After that, most of our time was spent untangling Christmas lights and seeing if they worked. Overall, many of the volunteers expected to do something else. I understand grounds beautification is something that full time volunteers cannot get to. It does serve an important purpose, even if it is rather tiring.

However, the project as a whole could have used some better communication. At multiple parts of the day we were left unsupervised for longer than ten minutes. We were also told we could buy food nearby, but then a few of us found out that the nearest place we could get food was unfeasibly far away. During a discussion held on the way back to Stockton, we all agreed that there were major problems that needed to be addressed with the PAL. Hopefully, they will be resolved the next time they ask for volunteer work. Hopefully this serves as a good warning for the Honors committee that sometimes investigation needs to be done for the sake of volunteer’s time. One bad experience may discourage people from other days of service.

11th Annual Day of Service

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On September 6th I attended the 11th annual Day of Service. The Day of Service hosts a variety of different charities and other groups that are committed to helping the community. You were able to choose if you wanted to get involved with a service project that was either on or off campus. There was over five-hundred students who volunteered their time for the Day of Service. It was so great to see how many college students want to be involved in their community and help out, even if they only do service one day a semester.

The service project my friends and I chose was the Shore Ministries Thrift Shops, one in Galloway and one in Northfield. My roommate and I were separated from our three other friends and we went to help out at the Galloway site. We helped out from 9 am to about 1 pm and it felt really good to help the lady out. She was the only person who was working at that site so not only did we help her organize and clean the store, but we also helped her sell items to customers. I could tell that running the store alone was most likely very overwhelming and that is probably why it was so unorganized.

The thrift shops are owned by the Shore Ministries which is a church group. The thrift shops began first as a place to store items that were donated to the church until the church decided that selling the donations was a good way to raise money. The people who ran the Northfield store had shared this information with the other members of our group. I think that thrift stores are a great idea because you can sell clothes and other items to less privileged people at a much lower price, especially for items in such good quality.

Working at the thrift shop for the 11th Annual Day of Service felt very rewarding. It was a very unusual service project but it was very interesting and we found a lot of interesting items in the store. There were many more service projects to pick from and I definitely think I will attend the Day of Service every time it’s held for the next four years that I will be attending Stockton. If you haven’t attended a Day of Service yet, you should, because it’s very rewarding and a good way to volunteer for your community. The event is held by the Office of Student Development and they hold them once every semester. There are also many different types of Days of Service that are held throughout the year and those are always good to attend as well. Any way to make contribution to your community through volunteering is a good one.

Freshman Blog: Going Green at the ACUA

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Students beat the heat on September 9th as part of Stockton’s annual Day of Service. The event began at 8:00 am with students receiving a free breakfast before going to meet with the volunteer heads for over a dozen activities. Some of the activities were on-campus, while others required a short ride in a van. I volunteered for the ACUA (Atlantic County Utilities Authority), with Professor Greene being our volunteer head.

This was my first time attending the Day of Service, but it did feel very confusing at first. I signed up for the event on the day it started, expecting it to be full of volunteer organizations looking for students to help them throughout the year. This did not turn out to be the case, as I found out. The Day of Service did live up to its name, but I feel like freshman students barely had any information going into the event, as other people who were freshman or first year transfer students in my group were confused as well. The ACUA’s event also could have been more specific, as many of us thought we will be going to a park to pick up trash.

Once we arrived at the ACUA, we were given shirts with the company’s acronym on it, as well as gloves. The ACUA maintains greenhouses and rents plots to communities and individuals and contains a recycling facility for all the recyclable waste in Atlantic County. We were introduced to an associate from the company and were tasked with helping clear the greenhouse from various weeds that had grown there over the summer. We worked for two hours pulling various species of plants from the greenhouse, until the extreme heat brought us indoors for an early lunch. We were very successful, cleaning out a large majority of the weeds in the greenhouse to be turned into compost.

For the second half of the day, we got to visit the community plots and pull weeds as well. However, the relative heat and humidity, as well as our group being very tired and overheated from our few hours in the greenhouse meant we only cleaned the gardens for an hour before leaving early.

Overall, the day was a success. Keeping the greenhouses clean is an important community service, as we learned that not only do people from Atlantic City come to garden but people from communities that are farther away as well. Most people cannot upkeep their plots, which is how poison ivy or weeds spread and invade into other plots, ruining the garden. It also was a nice outing to learn about different kinds of plants, since my group needed to weed out mint plants, which spread and invaded one part of the gardens. Even if the weather was very disagreeable, I found it enjoyable, as I did not have many opportunities to work or keep a garden during my years in high school.

Freshmen Blogging Project 1: Day of Service

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On September 6, 2014, it was the Day of Service, a whole day full of different volunteer activities for students to participate in. When my group of friends and I entered the event, we had already decided that we wanted to do Books without Borders since it seemed like we could stay together and still have fun. But when we walked into the event room, it was already crowded and most of the tables were already full of people. We tried to look for the Books without Borders sign but it was nowhere to be found, so we just quickly sat at an empty table so we wouldn’t get split up without even looking at what we were doing.

It ended up being volunteer work for the WaterWatch club. When we first read the description, all of us were a little disappointed. In this activity we had to help with a campus clean up. Walking around in the heat picking up trash didn’t exactly sound appealing, but it ended up being more enjoyable than I had ever expected. We were split up into groups of 10 and we were given gloves, a trash grabber, and trash bags, and we quickly set out.

We realized there were so many cigarette butts everywhere. Our campus has designated smoking areas, but it obviously wasn’t making much of a difference. At the end we talked about how it would be a good idea to raise awareness about this issue and have more campus clean-up events. It might even be a good idea to have more designated smoking areas closer to the main buildings since the smoking gazebos are far away and smokers may find it hard to go to a gazebo and make it to class on time.

Overall, it felt like a huge accomplishment when we were done. I hope to participate in more campus improvement events like this and to become even more involved in Stockton.