Outreach Day exposes students to community

By Cindy Dinh     3/19/09 7:00pm

Whether planting trees, registering children for health insurance or hearing the stories of undocumented workers, Rice students came out in droves last Saturday to volunteer with various organizations in the city as part of Spring Outreach Day, sponsored by the Rice Student Volunteer Program. This was the third Outreach Day of the academic year, a one-day group volunteering event that introduces students to the needs of the Houston community and its social services organizations. Each semester, Outreach Day is coordinated by members of RSVP. Additionally, the Community Involvement Center organizes an Outreach Day immediately following Orientation Week each year.

This year, over 175 students volunteered at 23 sites, reflecting the RSVP committees in health, children, hunger and homelessness, education and environment. Spring Outreach Day Agency Contact Coordinator Grace Chang, a Hanszen College sophomore, said over 360 students initially signed up, a record high, but may have been discouraged by the inclement weather, as half of those who registered to volunteer attended Spring Outreach Day.

"If the weather was better, we'd have a lot more people," Chang said.

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Hermann Park

However, Chang said the rain did not deter some students who were signed up to maintain flora in Hermann Park. Despite the event's cancellation, five students continued their project assignment, pulling weeds by the lake and returning wet and caked with mud, she said.

"The volunteers were enthusiastic and wanted to go despite the rain," Chang said. "It shows how much Rice students care - sacrificing your own health and time on a day that wasn't ideal to go volunteer."

Best Buddies

Ritu Rajan, site leader for the Best Buddies program, said this one-day volunteer commitment might spur future volunteering initiatives, which was one of the primary objectives of Outreach Day.

"With Outreach Day, a lot of people who haven't volunteered before get exposure to what [RSVP does], which is great," Rajan, a Lovett College senior, said. "If they like it they start participating more in our events."

Rajan and others worked with Best Buddies, an organization dedicated to enhancing the lives of people with mental disabilities. Volunteers engage them in conversation and spend one-on-one time with them. Even though volunteering opportunities with the Best Buddies program occur throughout the year, it was Rajan's first time volunteering with them.

"I liked it so much, now I want to get involved," she said. "Even though I'm graduating this year I might want to do it after graduation."

DePelchin Children's Center

Brown College junior Eric Rutledge said he felt the same way after he volunteered at the DePelchin Children's Center-Youth Residential Treatment Center, a shelter that provides a safe learning environment for children from abused families or who are suffering from depression and other behavioral conditions.

"It was my first time there, but I'd definitely go back again," Rutledge said.

The group that he led played board games and watched movies with teens ranging in age from 13-17 years.

"Once we got to know them, it was really fun. We got really competitive and formed teams playing boardgames for five-year-olds," Rutledge said.

Houston Interfaith Workers Justice

At the Houston Interfaith Worker Justice site, volunteers went to street corners to talk with construction workers who were self-contracted or self-employed, Hanszen senior Frank An said. The organization works to fight for undocumented workers' unpaid wages.

"They would go weeks and weeks without a job," An, the outgoing RSVP treasurer, said. "But at the very end, even when they did the job, they wouldn't get paid."

Hearing the stories of undocumented workers was a moving experience and a wake-up call, he said.

"You really got to see unemployed, primarily Hispanic workers, tell their background," An said. "One guy had an MBA; one guy had a computer science degree in Mexico, yet now they're construction workers. They wanted a better life, but didn't get one here."

Children's Defense Fund

As part of Children's Defense Fund's Student Health Outreach program (CDF SHOUT), Hanszen sophomore Courtney Ng went to Park Place Library to help register children for the State Children Health Insurance Program. They are working with the Houston Independent School District to have all students registered for either private or public health insurance.

"The idea behind our involvement is to raise awareness about SCHIP and ease the enrollment process," Ng, RSVP's outgoing education committee chair, said. "Children with health insurance are able to go to the doctor; they get treatment faster; and the cost in general is much lower."

Volunteers helped parents fill out applications for their children and translated directions on how to apply, she said. They also set up board games and activites for the children while they waited.

Ng said the CDF SHOUT coordinators, Brown senior Connie Foo and Baker College senior Yordanos Gebretatios, took the project to the next level by carefully identifying their target audience.

"[Foo and Gebretatios] were able to find out what neighborhoods in Houston were most in need of health insurance," Ng said. "They talked with professors who have done surveys and figured out which neighborhoods to go to. Then they coordinated with the local library and did outreach to local schools around the library."

Implementing marketing strategies increased the program's publicity, Ng said.

"When people came out, it wasn't just because CDF SHOUT brought them out," she said. "We brought them out."

Children's Assessment Center

Located in the Rice Village, the Children's Assesment Center is an advocacy center for sexually abused children.

"It was cool to find a volunteering opportunity so close to Rice that I did not know existed," Baker junior Cole Perry said.

Volunteers helped maintain the areas by cleaning out the kitchen and play room and organized the pantry, clothes closet and library, Perry said.

Methodist Hospital

To celebrate St. Patrick's day, volunteers helped patients paint and decorate terra cotta pots at nearby Methodist Hospital. Will Rice College sophomore Susan Su said the pots were then filled with flowers for the patients.

"Some of [the patients] might have had bad mornings, so we cheered them up and talked to them," Su said.

About a dozen volunteers paired off to visit with patients in two floors of the hospital.

Trees for Houston

Joanna Luo, site leader for Trees for Houston, said her group of 10 volunteers bore the wet weather while trimming trees along White Oak Bayou Park near US Highway 290/Northwest Freeway.

"It was really cold that day and somewhat drizzling, but we still managed to trim the entire strip of land they gave us," Luo, a Jones College freshman, said.

A staff member from Trees for Houston called the volunteers earlier in the morning to see if they wanted to cancel due to the weather, but the group continued with their plans.

"Since we already put in so much effort [organizing transportation], we might as well do it," Luo said.

The volunteers learned how to identify the different types of trees in the area in order to select which ones to trim. She estimated the group trimmed between 75 to 100 trees along a two-mile stretch of roadway.

"We trimmed the trees down so they wouldnt interfere with the roads or sidewalks," Luo said. "We learned that trees don't grow up, they grow sideways."

Unlike in her previous experiences volunteering, Luo said she did not know anyone in her group this time.

"It was nice getting to branch out," she said. "Rice is so small. It's a great opportunity to meet new people."

Star of Hope Mission

At a faith-based homeless shelter, volunteers sorted various donated items. According to site leader and Baker freshman Liz Young, volunteers paired up shoes and folded 814 pillow cases.

"In terms of different [Outreach Day] places I've gone to in the past, this was more doing a job for them rather than interacting with people," Young said.

She said she felt she was really helping someone by sorting through tangible items for the organization's clients.

Houston Humane Society

Fifteen volunteers helped the organization prepare for their upcoming fun run by sorting donated dog-related items and assembling goody bags, site leader Diane Chen said.

The animal shelter is focused on eliminating cruelty, abuse and the overpopulation of animals, and offers a spay and neuter clinic and adoptions. While the volunteers mainly worked on assembling the bags, they did get to interact with some of the animals.

"We played with the big dogs outside, including goldern retrievers, huskies and laboradors," Chen, a Baker sophomore, said.

Partnership for the Advancement and Immersion of Refugees

PAIR site leader Ariel Rogers worked with Nepalese teenagers who recently came to the United States. She said even though Outreach Day was her first time volunteering with PAIR, she was thoroughly impressed by her experience with the students.

"It was incredible to see how intelligent they were and how excited they were to be here," Rogers, a Brown sophomore said. "Despite the bad weather, and despite the fact that we had little to no English words to communicate with each other, we had a wonderful time. They made my month and my semester."

Despite having a translator there with the volunteers, Rogers said that the language barrier was still a substantial obstacle to overcome.

"My first reaction was going into camp counselor mode," Rogers said, explaining that she picked up a ball and began to kick it around.

"Soccer is such a universal language that everyone was immediately joining in," she said.

Houston SPCA

Several groups of volunteers helped the SPCA animal shelter with various tasks, including cleaning out cages and clearing out a barn for horses. Sid Richardson College junior Shaiyan Keshvari participated in the clean-up efforts of several animal cages which had been confiscated from a cock fight.

"On Animal Planet they always have the animal police who bust cock fights," Keshvari said. "Somebody has to clean up after that stuff, so that's what we did."

"It was very down and dirty," he continued. "My brand new shoes got covered in chicken poop, but it was cool because the people who worked there were working with us too."

He said this experience was fun and necessary to help the organization function.

"Working behind the scenes you don't see the fruits of what you're doing, but it's still important to do [it]," Keshvari said.

AIDS Foundation Houston

Volunteers helped the organization set up for AIDS Walk Houston, held the following day. Students helped move tables, chairs, food, water and registration materials to Sam Houston Park, where the benefit walk was held.

Habitat for Humanity

A few student groups volunteered together at specific Habitat sites, which made it easier to coordinate, considering some of the agency's limited space and volunteer requirements, Chang said.

Habitat for Humanity had a limited number of volunteer spaces available and asked volunteers to attend orientation and bring their own hammers, she said. Volunteers from AGAPE, Rice's chapter of Campus Crusade for Christ, came with tools in hand to begin work on building new houses.

Crossroad Community Partnership for Youth

This agency requested volunteers over age 21 since they would be interacting with youth ages 10-17 who are all on probation and living in a residential placement facility. Volunteers from Rice's Graduate Student Association interacted with the youths by playing games, having conversations and encouraging them to make better decisions.

Some organizations gave volunteers an overview of their mission and purpose by offering an orientation in hopes that the students will become future volunteers for the organization after Outreach Day, Chang said. These organizations included Bering Omega Community Services, which focuses on the physical, emotional and spirtual needs of persons affected by HIV/AIDS, and Ten Thousand Villages, which helps artisans in developing countries by selling their goods and telling their stories in North America.

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