Get involved and stay involved is the message the Northwestern Community Development Corps wants volunteers to remember.
“One of our main goals is to get a lot of volunteers because the more volunteers we have, the more work we can do,” said Laurie Jaeckel, a Weinberg junior and co-chairwoman of NCDC.
More than 100 freshmen and upperclassmen took the first step toward becoming volunteers by attending NCDC’s recruitment fair Monday night in the Louis Room of Norris University Center.
“I feel a big part of our experience here is reaching out to the community and not being self-focused, but helping people and doing outreach,” said Becky Campbell, a Medill freshman. “I think a lot of college students don’t realize how much of a difference we can make.”
Some college students agree to the importance of donating their time were those who attended the Freshman Urban Program, a six-day orientation program that introduces freshmen to volunteer organizations in the area with the hopes of cultivating dedicated NCDC members.
“We brainwash them during FUP and make sure they understand they’re going to play such a significant role (in NCDC)”, said Jessi Braverman, a Medill sophomore and an NCDC outreach co-chairwoman.
Through their experiences with FUP, freshmen learn how to be site leaders for NCDC, coordinating activities with community service organizations in Evanston and Chicago. At least 50 percent of this year’s NCDC site leaders are freshmen, Braverman said.
“We were worried last year because we had 16 sites without leaders and nine sites with leaders,” she said. “Now we have 36 sites.”
Weinberg freshman Verene Lystad participated in FUP and is coordinating volunteer activities with Trilogy, a facility that helps mentally ill adults become self-sufficient.
“I really feel like I got to know Chicago and make a difference already, which is great when you’re new,” she said.
But not everyone at the kickoff event was new to NU.
“I’m excited because I’m looking to broaden my Northwestern experience now that I’m a junior,” said Speech student Katie Reibert. “I did volunteer work this summer and my senior year of high school at an AIDS hospice and a women’s crisis center and they have similar programs here.”
Before potential volunteers signed up for sites, John Barros, head of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative in Roxbury, Mass., spoke about the opportunity that volunteering provides for students to help communities and for those communities to teach students.
“Volunteering through an academic institution is an underappreciated way of learning,” Barros said. “Take whatever you learn in the classroom and apply it to the field and that will quadruple the impact you make.”
