Berkeley Project Gets Students Involved in Community Service

A new student-run community service day opened for student registration last week.

The Berkeley Project Day, which will occur on Nov. 11, was established by the Berkeley Project, a student organization aimed at creating links between UC Berkeley students and the surrounding community through service-oriented activities.

The service day will serve as a step toward accomplishing that goal by having student volunteers work on approximately 40 community service projects throughout the day, organizers said.

“The goal was to create at least one day when we’re not just Berkeley students, but Berkeley residents,” said senior Kenny Leu, the group’s finance officer.

Student organizers said they started developing the idea for the Berkeley Project group last semester and modeled the day of service after a similar project called the Detroit Project, which took place at the University of Michigan.

Activities for the Berkeley Project Day will range from landscaping to working with disabled children and senior citizens, said junior Jennifer Cooper, one of the group’s site planning directors.

The group’s goal is to register at least 1,000 students for the event, organizers said.

Berkeley Project members are working with a number of other student groups, such as Cal Habitat for Humanity and CalPIRG, said senior Andrew Rowland, executive director of the Berkeley Project.

Organizers said they are looking to register volunteers from the general campus community and are in contact with many student groups in an effort to accomplish their registration goals, said senior Caitlin Sorensen, another site planning director for the project.

“We are hoping to garner volunteers from every facet of the student population,” Sorensen said.

Participating in the project does not require a long-term commitment to any group, which student organizers said they hoped would encourage students to participate.

“We wanted to create an avenue that was easy to have students participate in community service,” Sorensen said. “It’s very low commitment—it’s only one day.”

Organizers said they hope to raise $17,000 in supplies and additional funds to complete the projects set for Nov. 11 and provide food for student volunteers, Leu said.

If all goes as planned, the community action day will establish a foundation within the student body and will be continued in the future, he said.

“We hope to create a mentality at Berkeley where students don’t just care about academics, but care about where they are: here,” Leu said.

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