College freshmen lend a hand to improve local parks
On Saturday, August 27, about 40 incoming students from the College at Brockport walked from campus at 1:30 p.m. to their assigned playgrounds in Evergreen, Monika Andrews Children’s and Corbett Parks. College team leaders Cole Bennion and Jhon Guarin guided the students to and from their assigned sites and during their projects. This year, the freshmen came from all over New York State and one from as far away as Los Angeles.
Why were they doing this? Saturday Day of Service is an annual cooperative venture between the College at Brockport and fifty organizations, agencies, churches, libraries, etc. throughout the Greater Rochester area. It is mandatory for the 1,053 students (a record this year) who participate in this at-large community service initiative during their first weekend at college by “giving back” to their new homes.
Once again, as in previous years, it was a very hot afternoon in Brockport. Some students had never carried out such assignments, but they did a great job – sanding and painting picnic tables and trash receptacle slats, weeding lilac beds and mulched areas, painting parking barriers and bicycle racks, and burying swing set mats under mulch – over a two-hour period in the parks. That’s 80 hours of volunteer labor.
Also at the parks, where beforehand the Brockport’s Department of Public Works supplied materials and tools, were parks committee members who supervised the young workers: Linda Ketchum at Evergreen Park; Sandi Henschel and Sarah Hackley at Monika Andrews Children’s Park; and Losh Spalla and Hanny Heyen at Corbett Park.
Many thanks to the students, parks members, Nikole Van Wie, Coordinator of Community Service at the College at Brockport, and Linda Ketchum, Vice-Chair of the Village of Brockport’s Parks Committee for their efforts in making the seventh Annual Saturday of Service in the Village of Brockport such a success.
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