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Several community service organizations in Easton, as well as cities around the country, will benefit from the volunteer power of more than 200 Lafayette students, faculty, staff, and alumni who will donate their time on April 17 for Lafapalooza 2010: Lafayette’s National Day of Service.
Hosted by the College’s Landis Community Outreach Center, there will be 13 local volunteer projects benefiting the Boys and Girls Club of Easton, ProJeCt of Easton, Habitat for Humanity, the Easton Area Neighborhood Center, the Weed and Seed program, the YMCA, the Easton Area Community Center, the West Ward Neighborhood Partnership, Easton’s parks, and the Bachman Publick House.
Projects include indoor and outdoor clean-ups, leading youth groups, painting, gardening, and other activities to help local not-for-profit organizations.
“As Lafayette students, we have all been blessed with very special privileges,” says Lafapalooza committee member Chris La Tempa ’10 (Pompton Plains, N.J.), an American studies major. “Community service allows us to bestow those gifts and experiences on others. Community service is also humbling because it makes us realize how rare those gifts, such as educational and social opportunities, really are.”
In addition to the projects happening in Easton, eight regional Lafayette alumni chapters will be coordinating and participating in volunteer activities nationwide on April 17 and 24. In San Francisco and Philadelphia, alumni will be working at area food banks. Boston-area alumni will work on horticulture and landscaping projects at Zoo New England. In Oyster Bay, N.Y., volunteers will work to remove invasive plants, restore and repair trails, and rehabilitate other areas of the Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary & Audubon Center. Other alumni community service projects will take place in New Jersey, the Lehigh Valley, and Washington, D.C.
Caitlin Flood ’12 (Bellerose Terrace, NY), a government & law and philosophy major, knew she wanted to get involved in the Landis Center after being a part of the pre-orientation service program her freshmen year. “After speaking to upperclassmen, I learned that there were so many Landis programs to choose from, and it was easy for me to find volunteer programs I was interested in,” says Flood, a Lafapalooza committee member. “It definitely feels good to help others, but I’m also very aware that the people I work with help me learn about myself and certain social issues I was not previously aware of.”
One event taking place is Spring in the Parks, which was developed by the students in Mapping Urban Ecology, a Values and Science/Technology course taught by Bonnie Winfield, director of the Landis Center. The project’s goal is to bring attention to the eight pocket parks in the West Ward area of Easton. In each park, children will take part in a project based on an environmental issue: water, recycling, planting trees, etc. The Easton Trolley will take the participants around a loop to each park.
The Lafapalooza Leadership Committee also includes Clarissa Brown ’12 (Muncy, Pa.), Treyvon Jackson ’10 (Germantown, Md.), Milan Patel ’12 (Springfield, N.J.), Pooja Shah ’11 (Voorhees, N.J.), chairperson Julia Tanenbaum ’12 (Mount Kisco, N.Y.), Janelle Thompson ’10 (Butler, Pa.), Greg Troutman ’13 (Columbia, Pa.), and Alexandra Vrancik ’10 (Cinnaminson, N.J.).