BY KATE PIERCE
News Editor
Nearly 900 volunteers represented Saint Rose as they performed acts of service around the Capital Region on Saturday Sept 9th.
The 22nd annual community service event, called Reach Out Saint Rose, involves students, faculty, and alumni working for a full day to give back.
“We were founded by a community of sisters,” said Mo Elliott, a senior who was involved in the planning of the event. “This day of service supports their mission.”
Carolyn Stefanco, the College’s president, shared a similar sentiment in her opening speech for the Reach Out.
“This day is an amazing tribute to our founders, the sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet,” she said. “Their values of serving the dear neighbor and meeting the needs of the community are exemplified in all of you”
Planning for the one day event began in May, even though there was no way for the planning committee to prepare an accurate count of everyone who ended showing up. While sign ups for Reach Out were available during the summer and through the days leading up to the event, not everyone who signed up came – and not everyone who came signed up.
“People who show up on the day of without signing up – it’s great but it causes a little chaos,” said Elliott. Along with students Emily Callman and Diana Welch, Elliott worked to plan the event along with Joan Horgan, the director of campus ministry.
The largest part of organizing the event is reaching out to the community and compiling a list of recipients of service and how many students will be on each team. Each team for Reach Out generally consists of a group of resident students, an athletic team, commuter students, clubs, or any combination of those groups.
Many of the recipients of service remained the same from years past, including nursing homes in the region, the Homeless Action Committee, Lwanga House, Mercy House, City Mission, Capital City Rescue Mission, Bethesda House, Unity House, and neighborhood clean up projects on Madison Avenue, Lark Street, Delaware Avenue, and Central Avenue. A few of the locations were new additions to Reach Out, which included the The Schuyler Inn, an emergency housing shelter in Albany, was one of the new locations.
One location that has been a longstanding recipient of service from Saint Rose volunteerism is the Regional Food Bank Farm in Voorheesville. A group of students who are residents of Brubacher Hall, 968, 972 and 974 Madison Avenue, and members of the men’s lacrosse team all volunteered on the farm picking tomatoes, onions, and melons. With nearly 60 volunteers, the team accomplished what would have taken the small staff of the farm three weeks to finish in only two hours.
“Nothing exemplifies our mission in action like Reach Out Saint Rose,” said John Dion, an associate professor of marketing. This year was Dion’s fifth year participating in Reach Out Saint Rose.He went to the Regional Food Bank Farm and assisted in picking onions with the men’s lacrosse team, which included some of the students he teaches in his business classes.
“It’s nice to work together in a different environment,” Dion said.
Everyone who participated in volunteering at Reach Out was given a tshirt with a John Lewis quote on the back. The shirts read, “If not us, then who? If not now, when?”
Stefanco spoke about this mindset in her speech while discussing the announcement that President Trump used an executive order to rescind the Deferred Action for Children Act, which protects those who entered the country illegally as minors to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation.
“Saint Rose students who are covered by DACA, known as dreamers, are members of our community” said Stefanco. “The College of Saint Rose stands beside them and you and supports your desire to exceed your expectations through higher education. Saint Rose is here, as it has always been here to educate, to serve, and to offer opportunities to all students.”
Reach Out is an opportunity to volunteer and act as a symbol for how the campus community can unite for a common good, according to Stefanco.
“We are blessed today and everyday by each other and the certainty that is built upon the nearly 100 years on our institution’s history that no one can contain our spirit of kindness and our welcome for all,” Stefanco said.
Horgan hopes that the event inspires the campus community to continue volunteering.
“Sometime volunteering is as extraordinary as saving a life,” Horgan said, in reference to the volunteers assisting in the recovery and prevention efforts from Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Hurricane Irma in Florida. “But for most of the time it is people spending their ordinary time to just help someone out.”
