Approximately 1,200 undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff from the University’s campuses in the city gathered on Saturday to serve the greater Baltimore community as part of the fifth annual President’s Day of Service (PDOS).
Organized by the Center for Social Concern, PDOS was a daylong event for volunteers. Participants worked in teams at sites across the city, in many cases serving alongside residents affiliated with local community centers and other nonprofit organizations. Many of the teams were led by student groups on the Homewood Campus.
Volunteers served at 43 sites in the Baltimore area this year, working on projects ranging from beautification to hunger and food justice.
“President [Ronald J.] Daniels says it best, ‘Our hope is that the spirit of this day will carry forward, informing our students’ lives and shaping their connections to the places they will call home.’ We also want to thank nonprofit organizations and community centers for their great work by putting our volunteers right beside them,” Allie Ast, PDOS program chair, wrote in an email to The News-Letter.
Ast and the rest of the PDOS Executive Board — Logistics Chair Elaine Markovich, PR and Recruitment Chair Ian McMurray and Event Day Chair Alex Skelton — are all Hopkins undergraduates.
At first called Freshmen Involved Day, the event originated 16 years ago as a part of orientation. Upon his arrival five years ago, Daniels expanded the activity into the school-wide President’s Day of Service.
Daniels has taken an active role in the day of service, serving alongside groups at sites across the Baltimore area. As in past years, he also gave a speech in the Rec Center, where participants gathered on Saturday morning before setting out to volunteer.
The PDOS Executive Board was looking to sign-up more participants for the five-year anniversary.
“I wanted to increase volunteer turnout and to have a theme. For example, Ian, our PR person, specifically targeted student groups and athletic teams for sponsorship status, and of course, we had the Happy5thPDOS hashtag to keep the fifth anniversary theme going,” Ast wrote.
Students, faculty and staff worked together at the service sites around Baltimore to complete a number of volunteer projects.
“There were two teams out our site, along with other people who were not in a group. We were there with [the] Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and there were also postdocs there and a staff member from Hopkins, so we definitely had a very diverse group. It was a cool mix of people,” Bryan Ricciardi, team leader for the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, said.
Participating in a beautification project, the 11 Phi Gamma Delta fraternity brothers volunteered at the Greenmount School, a private, co-op elementary school close to the Homewood Campus.
At the Greenmount School, PDOS volunteers worked on a playground, where they installed logs for children to sit on during meals and outdoor classes and set up xylophones for kids to play with. Volunteers also did basic yard work.
“They got the job done in a shorter amount of time than we thought it would take. They were so efficient and organized and welcome to doing anything, and they were able to complete everything we needed done within two and a half hours,” Laura Marsico, Greenmount School site coordinator, said.
Marsico also noted the growth of PDOS over the past few years.
“We became involved with PDOS a few years ago, I would say this is our third year that we have had help from Johns Hopkins. The numbers have increased every year,” Marsico said. “We love community involvement; so personally, to see the volunteers interact with the school, and out there in the community in general, is awesome.”
At the Blue Jay’s Perch community garden, 13 Phi Kappa Psi fraternity brothers harvested crops and turned the soil.
“I believe it was a successful event,” Jeff Brehm, team leader for the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “The school did a good job getting, organizing and sending 1,000 people to do philanthropy which already is a pretty fantastic accomplishment.”
The PDOS Executive Board also felt that the event was a successful showing of University community engagement.
“Most participants I talked to enjoyed the day, and most sites really appreciated the volunteers’ work,” Markovich wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “We’ve challenged each participant to commit to five hours of community service between now and President’s Day of Service 2014. PDOS is only one day, but we hope it’s a day that launches a longer commitment to service.”
Many students felt that the event captured well the spirit of service at Hopkins.
“Baltimore has a heart, and we were not out there just to rake leaves or pick up trash — we were out there to intertwine our veins with those of the city so that we could feel its heartbeat surge through our own. President’s Day of Service isn’t about one day. It’s about waking up every single day and saying, ‘Good morning, Baltimore!’” Jon Ung, team leader for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, wrote in an email to The News-Letter.
Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The News-Letter.