The holidays remind us this is the season of giving. All members of SUNY make a concerted effort to volunteer and contribute to their respective campuses and local communities. The 30 Days of Giving campaign highlights students and faculty across all of our 64 campuses who participate in volunteerism and give back to those in need. With over 467,000 students and three million alumni, we want to celebrate the impact the SUNY community has made in all of their unique community service projects. As we learned last year, the byproduct of taking volunteerism to scale is not only building character in our students themselves as they join our over three million alumni, but also to set an example of impact as the nation’s largest university system.
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Day 20
Monroe Community College
Community Engagement Without Borders
Whether it’s creating science kits for area preschoolers or providing educational supplies to schools in South Sudan, Monroe Community College students are passionate about making a difference in communities here and afar.
■ Twenty-six education majors are making math and science kits linked to children’s literature for preschoolers in area child care centers. They are helping youngsters learn about outer space, weather, numbers, and simple addition and subtraction. Another group of education students is developing physical science lessons that they will teach to elementary school students in the Rochester City School District. Last year, children learned about various concepts like static electricity, density, and gravity.
■ MCC’s Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Project is implementing a project that was one of only 200 worldwide to receive recognition from the Clinton Global Initiative in spring 2013. The student-led Brighten a Child’s Future in South Sudan aims to provide school supplies to help children there complete their education.
■ More than 60 sociology students are addressing issues they are learning about in class through activities in collaboration with Metro Justice, a Rochester grassroots community organization. One group of students is focused on housing inequality and empowering Rochester residents to take a proactive approach in improving their neighborhoods, such as cleaning up abandoned lots. Another student has gathered 300 signatures for a petition urging Rochester officials to give a neighborhood park an overdue face-lift.
The Corporation for National and Community Service has thrice recognized MCC’s commitment to service with inclusion on the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll.
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More Days:
Always give back, that’s what matters after all