SCSU Day Of Service Cleans Up

The following was submitted by LCI Neighborhood Specialist Jillian Driscoll

Every fall, incoming freshman are expected to participate in a Day of Service at Southern Connecticut State University and this year about 200 fanned out over the city to make an impact.

SCSU’s Assistant for Student Involvement and Leadership Development Daphney Alston reaches out to many nonprofits, organizations, and city departments that could utilize volunteers out in the community to make an impact. Students were bussed to their assigned site Saturday morning to volunteer for three hours.

LCI neighborhood specialists took advantage of this opportunity again this year and organized over 200 students in six different neighborhoods — West Hills/Westville, Dwight, WEB, City Point, Wooster, Cedar Hill — to do various community projects. The turn out was exceptional.

Projects ranged from covering graffiti in West Hills with LCI’s Jillian Driscoll to picking up dozens of bags of trash, especially along Whalley Avenue, in WEB with LCI’s Maggie Fernandez.

Business owners and homeowners nearby showed appreciation of them as they saw the students volunteering because there was an obvious before/after effect on the graffitied wall as well with such large piles of trash that was collected along and near Whalley Avenue.

Other projects included sprucing up community gardens in Wooster with LCI’s Carmen Mendez and Cedar Hill with LCI’s Linda Davis along with a Neighborhood Block Watch Association, and trash pick up in Dwight and City Point neighborhoods with Neighborhood Specialist Tracy Claxton and Arthur Natalino Jr. All of the projects that LCI worked on with the Southern students turned out great and had a positive impact on each community. The SCSU volunteers also were given a gift card voucher by Sara Amato, the McDonald’s area supervisor, in recognition of their efforts. The voucher is good for one free value meal at the McDonald’s locations on Kimberly and Whalley avenues.

“It’s great that SCSU has allowed the students to do such an array of work across our city, making an impact on so many,” Driscoll said. ​“LCI looks forward to next year’s opportunity to do it all again on the Day of Service 2019.”