The Seasoned Volunteers
- By Ann E. Shanahan '59
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- It's the Neighborly Thing to Do
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- Hundreds of students volunteer time, both on and off campus, each year
through S.O.S., the Smith College community service program. On campus,
for example, students sell coffee and doughnuts at Kaffee Klatsch in Seelye
Hall basement, raising money to support the expenses of running S.O.S.;
they assist with Red Cross blood drives; and they serve as S.O.S. representatives,
recruiting friends and housemates to become S.O.S. volunteers.
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- Charmaine Ong '97 is chair of the S.O.S. house reps this year. "I
became involved with S.O.S. as soon as I got to Smith," she says,
noting that in her home country, Malaysia, "there is no chance to
volunteer. Volunteering always has been a big deal to me, so I jumped right
into it."
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- A great many students also reach beyond the campus to seek volunteer
activities in the greater Northampton area. Last year, for example, Smith
volunteers painted the living room and bedrooms of a local shelter for
the homeless, harvested vegetables at the Food Bank Farm (whose produce
feeds area needy) and helped to weed the community gardens in Holyoke.
"Volunteering with S.O.S. allows you to get to know the community
outside of Smith better, and you get a sense of the real world," says
Eumie Kang '97, who is chairing S.O.S. this year and has been involved
with the organization since her first year at Smith.
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- A great many students reach beyond the campus to seek
volunteer activities with local elementary schools.
- It is not unusual for students to arrive at Smith as "very seasoned
volunteers," says Tiertza-leah Schwartz, S.O.S. director. More and
more, students are having a significant community service experience in
high school and want to expand upon it in college, she adds.
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- Based in the Helen Hills Hills Chapel, the program offers volunteer
opportunities at dozens of organizations and even suggests which ones would
provide experience that might dovetail with students' academic concentrations.
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- All in all, S.O.S. offers students opportunities to volunteer at more
than 60 agencies, and last year more than 500 students gave time to those
organizations and to on-campus projects; some volunteered time at more
than one location, which meant that 500 individuals became 800 different
placements. Ong, for example, volunteers at Kaffee Klatsch and has helped
at the local Visiting Nurses Association holiday gift-wrap fundraisers
as well. Her long-term project, however, is at the HIV/AIDS Law Consortium,
where she is an intern.
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- "Smith makes volunteering easy by accommodating your schedule,"
says Kang. The college also makes lots of information available about what's
possible. Twice a year, for example, it sponsors a community recruitment
service fair at which dozens of agencies are present to provide a kind
of one-stop shopping for volunteer opportunities.
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- The goal of S.O.S., now in its 29th year (although campus organizations
have fostered volunteer commitment for almost as long as Smith has been
in existence), is to teach students that their involvement in local communities
can have meaning both for them and for the people and organizations to
whom they give their time. But, more important, the experience they gain
at Smith as a result of their volunteer commitment may both encourage and
enable them, as it has many Smith women who have come before them, to influence
broader social change.
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