On August 30, the 2011 incoming Master of Social Work class kicked off the school year by volunteering at a variety of human service programs and nonprofit organizations in the community.
As part of the annual orientation activities, over 120 students from the incoming class participated in community service day projects in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Detroit. At 9 a.m. the buses set out to various indoor and outdoor locations throughout the region where students could begin a full day of getting to know one another and getting to know the community they will be working in for the next two years, and for some, the rest of their lives.
“It was nice to help rebuild something that was destroyed and at the same time have the opportunity to get to know each other,” said incoming student Jessica Bailey, who participated in the project at the Delray Neighborhood House at People’s Community Services in Detroit. Th e Delray Neighborhood House, located in one of Detroit’s most underserved areas, is a place for the children, teens, and adults of the Delray community to develop physically, academically, and socially. Student volunteers helped rebuild a sculpture garden that had been vandalized and also helped to repaint a wrought iron fence.
When asked about the biggest benefi t of having the volunteers work on these projects, Executive Director of People’s Community Services, Tom Cervenak, stated that the [Delray] kids worked really hard on the sculpture garden and when it was vandalized it was a big blow to the children and staff involved. “Th e grass started growing higher and higher, the fence started rusting.” But the work of University of Michigan’s MSW students was “a really great start to putting it back together again.”
Mr. Cervenak was not the only community member whose organization was helped by the student volunteers. Th e volunteers split up among 13 diff erent sites in the community including:
- Hannan Foundation’s St. Martha’s Commons
- AIDS Partnership
- Greening of Detroit—Manistique Garden and Dequindre Cut
- SOS Community Services—Time for Tots Daycare
- UMHS Child Care Center and Summer Camp
- Peace Neighborhood Center
- Tour of Detroit, Carr Center for the Arts and Gleaners Community Food Bank
- People’s Community Services—Delray Neighborhood House
- POWER, Inc.
- Christian Love Fellowship Ministries
- Faith Assembly Church
Many of these agencies have an ongoing relationship with the U-M School of Social Work, serving as fi eld sites and research partners and playing host to Community Service Day volunteers for a number of years. Every year students look forward to helping the Greening of Detroit prepare their community gardens for the fall harvest. Th is year the students worked to preserve native plant species at the Dequindre Cut native plant site.
“Doing community service really kicks off the excitement and spirit of being in social work,” said one student who participated in the SOS Community Services Time for Tots Daycare clean up. Community Service Day is the result of a summer-long coordination by William Vanderwill of the Offi ce of Field Instruction, Erin Zimmer of the Offi ce of Student Services, and Brittany Sandefur, a graduate student staff assistant and current student in the MSW program. “Most students come to the MSW program from a service background, and this is just one more step in that lifelong commitment to community action and social change,” said Sandefur.
Cheryl Majeske, volunteer coordinator for SOS Community Services, was grateful for the students’ help. “You have no idea how much we appreciate you coming out today. All of the work you guys have done has saved us hundreds of dollars that we don’t have, which translates to more money for our program and the children.”
Brittany Sandefur is a current MSW student and a graduate student staff assistant in the Offi ce of Student Services.