Harvard Unites For Service Day

Greeted by the blaring of Algerian music, 400 bleary-eyed volunteers gathered under a tent outside the Science Center early Saturday morning as they prepared to fan out across the greater Boston area for Harvard’s first University-wide “Day of Service.”

The day’s early risers were treated to a breakfast of bagels and doughnuts, as well as an address from University President Drew G. Faust, before heading off to work on 28 different service projects, ranging from landscaping to preparing meals for the homeless.

With participants from all nine of the University’s schools, and with $20,000 of funding, the inaugural Day of Service featured collaboration across the University and aimed to inform students of existing volunteer opportunities.

Organizers said they hope to make it an annual event and eventually an international one involving alumni clubs around the world.

During the breakfast, Faust took the opportunity to remind students of the obligations conferred upon them.

At Harvard, “we have access to the greatest minds of our generation, we get to engage with the subjects that most interest us—we have the world, in a sense, at our feet,” she said. “But with these enormous assets also come enormous responsibilities.”

The students dispersed after Faust’s speech. One group laid mulch in a hospital parking lot, another picked up litter near the Charles River, and a third conducted what one student called a “search-and-destroy mission for invasive plant species.”

Santosh P. Bhaskarabhatla ’09, the field captain of a project at the West End House Boys & Girls Club, beautified a graffiti-covered wall, working with three students from the Kennedy School of Government and five other undergraduates.

“We were outside, got some fresh air, got a work-out, got messy—but we all enjoyed it,” Bhaskarabhatla said.

The initial motivation for the event came from two graduate students—Crystal M. Fleming, a fourth-year student at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and Jason R. Rafferty, a second-year medical student.

The two attended an Ivy League summit last October where attendees discussed the service days at their own schools. Fleming and Rafferty noted that their own alma maters, Wellesley and Bates, already have days of service.

They then started to coordinate with representatives from the Phillips Brooks House Association and the Undergraduate Council, garnering a $10,000 seed grant from the Provost’s Office and raising an additional $10,000 from various sponsors.

Undergraduate Council Vice President Matthew L. Sundquist ’09, one of the day’s main organizers, said preparing the event strengthened ties between College and graduate students.

Despite a turnout that numbered well into the hundreds, several students complained that the event had not been sufficiently well-publicized on campus. The day was advertised in the Calendar of Opening Days distributed to freshmen and in e-mails and flyers.

But volunteer Michael F. Qian ’11 said that students heard about the event mostly by “word of mouth.”

During the afternoon barbecue, three bystanders stared at the white tent outside the Science Center in bewilderment.

“It’s a bloody disgrace that this wasn’t publicized,” said Jonathan P. Cummins ’11, as he gazed at the white tent outside the Science Center. “I literally had no idea that this was happening.”

Organizers said there would be many opportunities to volunteer in the future.

“Clearly, this is not just about a single day,” the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences’ Fleming said. “The most exciting thing is just the idea of starting a new tradition, something that people will latch onto.”