Approximately 300 students stood outside the Technological Institute on Saturday morning in the rain, waiting for buses to take them to 18 volunteer sites across Evanston and Chicago where they would participate in everything from kickball games to picking weeds.
The number of volunteers was nearly double that of last spring’s Outreach Day, said Joey Kahn, president of Organized Action by Students Invested in Society, one of the student groups that sponsored the event. The number of sites increased as well, up from 10 last year.
Outreach Day, also sponsored by the Northwestern Community Development Corps and the South Asian Student Alliance, is an annual event meant to encourage volunteerism among the NU student body.
OASIS Outreach Co-Chair Julie Santella attributed the doubled turnout to the six-week jump on organizing they had this year. Planning began in late August, she said, and the organizations involved targeted freshmen at the Activities Fair and Volunteer Fair during Wildcat Welcome Week.
Medill freshman Rebecca Oken was one of the students waiting on the steps of Tech at 9:30 a.m. Initially put off by the weather, she said she was won over once she arrived at the Rice Child and Family Center in Chicago, a home for neglected and abused children.
Oken, along with about 20 other students, played kickball with kids who came from homes where they were either neglected or abused.
She said most of the kids they met Saturday were very nice and it was hard to tell that they had such serious problems in their pasts.
“Whenever anyone made a great play or kicked a home run, you could see in their smiles how proud they were,” Oken said.
Other Outreach Day sites included Asian Youth Services, the Prairie Project, the Evanston Art Center, the Talking Farm and the American Cancer Society.
The only damper on the day came when one of the buses transporting students backed into a garage near the Howard Area Community Center.
One window broke and two girls decided to go home, said Weinberg senior Krissi Osborn, the site leader.
“Despite the delay, it seemed like a lot of people saw the whole experience as an adventure,” Osborn said.
Kahn said the group hopes to organize another Outreach Day in the spring, contingent upon their ability to find funding.
“The turnout was incredible,” the Medill senior said. “A lot of people said at the end that they wanted to get more involved.”
