Everyone has to participate in Into the Streets at least once during their Cornell career. Into the Streets is basically one day of service that is done during the Fall semester.
I always wondered what kind of difference one day of service can truly make.
For that reason, I never participated until this year because in the past I thought I was a bit too involved with community service. I used to work at the Southside Community Center (an after school center) which is similar to GIAC in many ways. I have tutored kids with the PSC’s Reach Program at the Ithaca Youth Bureau, and one year my frat hosted an entire indoor Carnival at Southside. Fun times.
This semester I took a different approach. I decided I won’t participate in any community service during the semester (to focus on better grades, and a full time job offer) except for Into the Streets.
Here’s what one day of service can do:
^Just one of my small piles of leaves. This was only my second time raking, ever. I’ve lived in a high rise in NYC my entire life. We just don’t have enough space in Brooklyn to rake anymore.
^End result: About 10 full bags of yard junk filled. We ran out of bags, so I’d say we did a pretty good job.
Doesn’t really look like much right? I didn’t think so either at first, but after speaking with the coordinator at GIAC, she explained to us how much that really helped. GIAC (Greater Ithaca Activities Center) has been around for many years and plays a pivotal role for many low-income families in the community. The center offers many programs such as tutoring, ESL, boxing classes, guidance for parents, etc. It was pretty impressive to hear about the many different services they offer, and to see how large the building is.
GIAC has way more funding than Southside does, however GIAC’s budget is really limited in terms of maintenance. They haven’t been able to fund consistent yard work, so what we did in just a few hours alleviated the pressure that their few maintenance workers face (I think the coordinator said that there are only three maintenance workers). The Rose House group pulled all of the weeds around the premises, and raked as much as we could.
There’s one thing I learned about myself at this event. Landscaping is hard work that I am not built for in this life 🙂
I know what you mean. Work like this might look easy, but once you start doing it you realize that raking leaves takes a long time. But when you look back later on, you can see the significant change you have made, and that is what makes you feel like you accomplished something.