Connect with Civic Engagement: Community Service Opportunities at Allegheny

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Awesome New Jersey welcome.

I'll give it a minute just in the session before ran over and some of our attendees are there.

I also kind of introduce myself so my name is Amanda. I am in admissions counselor here at Allegheny. I'm also an alumni of the school, so yeah, I am the liaison for our Bonner Service Leader program here at Allegheny, so I.

Kind of like a service liaison for any students interested in service when they when they attend.

And I'll go over the Bonner program two and a little bit, just in case there is interest there.

OK.

And I will say so. Feel free to ask questions at any point about different service opportunities you love to get involved in and maybe opportunities for you at Allegheny proved everything like that. I have a few slides put together, but it's not a huge presentation, so feel free to truly ask questions at any point. I'm always happy. I'm kind of point you in the right direction or connect you with the right people or whatever it may be.

Um?

OK.

Awesome, hi welcome.

Alright, just another minute.

Olivia, could you chat in the box to what you might be interested in? Um, in doing in college just so I can kind of gauge that I'm going to anyone else here as well. If you could chat that, that would be amazing.

Yes, I spoke French and creative writing minors. Awesome, OK, I was an environmental science major delegating myself, so that's awesome here. I actually work still really closely with the Department. So if you do have any questions, let me know and I will direct you to the right person.

And I will say for tech reasons, as you noticed, I read that before I sent it through. That's just because I'm kind of helping moderate the flow of questions just in case like.

Multiple questions come in at the same time. I'm like making sure that I address every question, I'm just kinda proving it, so that's why it's not immediately popping up. It's nothing wrong on your end, and if you are having any like visual or audio issues, best bet is just to refresh your screen or click CC in the top right corner. That's closed captioning.

Yeah, that's all you really need.

I yeah.

Hi can you hear me?

Yes I can.

Awesome.

Awesome, so I'm joined today by a Livia. She is our Bonner coordinator here. So kind of briefly talked behind. Lays out from the bottom service Leader program. Will kind of get more into details of that be. I'm joined by Livia today. She works within our Gateway network so she knows pretty much everything there is to do with service so yeah.

Thank you. Welcome to everybody.

I'm excited to get started. Do we want to jump in Amanda or do you want to give it a little bit?

I think we're good to go right away.

OK, well since I know there's not a ton of people here, so I just want to ask like are there any specific questions before we get started so I'm olyvia Lang? I'm the associate director of civic engagement and the Bonner Program director and the Allegany Gateway.

And the Allegheny Gateway Encompases career education, Civic engagement, international education. Preprofessional studies. Undergraduate research as missing one.

I know I'm missing one.

Wait, which ones did you already mention?

Yes.

Hello.

Done.

I said career add international add civic engagement, undergraduate research all Center for political participation.

So it's kind of the way that we think of it. 'cause that's like a kind of offices and workspaces like you come into the gateway to get connected outside of the classroom. So you come into our office to get out into the world.

So I'm a 2011 Allegany grad and I'm happy to talk about different ways to get involved in service. At Allegany College we have loads of different opportunities to engage students in their local community, which is Meadville, PA. So I can talk about that, or if anybody has any very specific questions, I'm happy to talk about those as well.

OK.

I can switch the science to for you, Olivia. I also just do this one.

If you want to briefly touch on these.

Yeah, that's perfect. Wait OK, sorry the audio is like totally throwing me off. It's a new system that I don't use very much, so I'm sorry if it's a little.

So some on going service opportunities that we have at Allegheny is we do service Saturdays. Those are once a month, about half a day an there one time service product for people who get involved in their local, usually helping our local community partners or residents in Meadville, it could be raking. It could be helping to build a ramp. It could be helping at an event that somebody is doing downtown. Sorting food for a local food pantry so.

That's more of what you think of when you would say like a more traditional service, so it's kind of half day. One time we feed you breakfast and then send you out into the community for short project.

So make a difference. Day is, I think, a really cool thing that we have in Meadville. You hear a lot about full days of service from college, and that's exactly what make a different state is. Except for really was started in collaboration with our local community. So it's not just college students, it's also community members.

Tenant giving their time. We fix proves we do kind of little shorter projects. That's like trimming shrubbery at like an elderly home that some maybe somebody can't isn't able to do it building ramps, so there's all sorts of projects that happen.

One of my favorite actually was when I was in college. I didn't make a difference day project and it was me and a group of three of my friends. We went out and cleaned the home of a woman and her husband that were elderly and just were not able to kind of do the more major cleaning things that needed to be done within the home.

And then she made a sloppy Joes afterwards as a thank you. So like it's just a really great way to get involved in the community. Meet some local members. Second, harvest Food Drive is once a year. It's again in collaboration with kind of the wider community. We collect food and money that's then distributed locally to any of our food banks.

Oh, and then alternative spring break trips again once a year, week long. Those are ones where you usually leave. You travel over spring break with a group of students, usually about 11:50 other students an you go somewhere we've gone to North Carolina and done River cleanups. We've had students go to Detroit and work in an after school program.

Change. We've had some people go to Virginia and work on trail rehab, an restoration. So for like nature trails. So we've kind of gone all over the place, but there's usually for that. Go every year that are open to any student to apply to.

I would have.

Yes, perfect. Why did a few service Saturdays, a student as well and make a difference day. I went to a horse and pig rescue farm for one of mine which was so fun because we got to like see all the different horses and like put the cows or pigs or whatever farm animals were there so there's plenty of ways. I had a few friends that helped build a ramp for someones home that to make it their home, more wheelchair accessible and they loved it. They also had food and just kind of hung out for awhile so.

There is plenty of ways for you to get involved. On average, 70% of our students engage in service every year or maybe more than that, but 70,000 hours are completed on average every year. So yeah, a allegating generals are very service minded community and there's plenty of ways to kind of dip your feet in those areas.

Next side OK, so this kind of touches some service leadership programs. I'll definitely let Olivia talk a lot about these, especially the Bonner server. Bonner Service Leader program, as it's close to her heart so.

Yeah, so we have four different service leadership programs, so if you are somebody that's very service minded coming into the college and you want to look at this and or you kind of test out some of those other things in your first year or years and you're like I just really want to get involved more, there are a bunch of different ways to kind of make that.

More substantial commitment.

So the Bonner Service Leader program, again, I'm biased because I run that program. But all the programs are really great. Truly, there are 16 students that we recruit from the incoming class. 7. Our scholars have been our leaders for the scholars. You get a.

So I'm like really blank in words this morning you get a scholarship and that means full financial need of you coming to the college and you work pretty substantially in the Community during that time. So you focus a lot on leadership development, working at a local nonprofit. You're doing about 8 to 10 hours a week with on going trainings, retreats, an it's a four year commitment. So again, we recruit incoming students.

We have the application live already, so if that's something that you're feeling really excited about and you maybe want to get involved more, you know you can reach out to me or Amanda, but we are already taking applications for next year.

The Davies Ferner Civic impact scholars. They also recruit incoming students. It's 10 students in each incoming class and they work locally in Meadville. It's somewhat similar to Bonner, in the sense that they'd be doing 8 to 10 hours a week. There are ongoing kind of trainings and leadership development a little bit different from Bonner, where they're more focused on economic development education.

And you're really working, particularly just in the Meadville community. Bonner has a few different opportunities to work, either nationally or internationally, and so kind of the difference there is, Davies is Davies fahrner civic Impact scholars is very much so focused on the Meadville community. But again, wonderful program my colleague runs it. She's lovely.

And so very cold. Two different programs that are a little bit different than if you think like both of those are really cool. I don't really get the difference. That's OK, you can apply to one or the other or speak to us and we are more than happy to kind of steer you towards in your interest which one might be better fit for you.

So Allegany Volunteer service leaders. This is more when you think of, like volunteer. This might be what comes to mind, right? So this isn't a paid position on the civic impact scholars and the Bonner service leaders are both paid positions. But this is for students that are working at a program. Maybe they have another job that they actually really love. It's less hours a week you're usually doing, maybe more like 3 hours a week.

I'm an you're working at local programs. They work at E equals MC squared, which just some like really cool programming at our local elementary schools. They do some.

Programming should bring young students actually on campus, and to do this like cool stem and science like a week to learn about science. They also have been involved in our food rescue program on campus, so there's a lot more leeway and kind of what the projects look like there and also less of a time commitment. So sometimes for some of our students they have another job and they are involved in other clubs.

Or they're doing a sport and so taking on one of those bigger positions just isn't something that is feasible, but they still really want to be involved, so we call them a VSL's. They're awesome. They do really, really great work in our community, so even if you think I have so many things on my plate, it's still. You can still kind of take a substantial leadership role in service.

And then our final service leadership program that we have. This is not necessarily out of the civic Engagement Office, but more works in collaboration with US and is a little bit more research based. So Gateway Network fellows work with local nonprofits and faculty and an administrator. So three of you kind of work together and the community has come up with a.

A need or a question that they have and the student is doing more research. Community research based programming.

Sometimes over the summer, sometimes during the school year, it can be pay or credit based, so these are oftentimes usually ones that maybe sophomore through senior year could be really cool opportunities. Once you kind of get here and get a feel for things.

I have some Bonner students actually working on Gateway Network projects this semester and few examples that I thought were like man, that's super cool is that they're helping Pymatuning, which is like a local wildlife center. They're doing a 100 year anniversary, so they're helping to come up with marketing and a video an all sorts of stuff before that agency another is working with local high schoolers that want to start.

A environmental club and want to do more substantial programming so they're working with the high schoolers to come up with the research and find out what's the right programming to do. What would work best?

So those projects can look really cool. There's usually about 30 of them I think, and there an application process, but really exciting ways to kind of do more hands-on research. That's community based. If that's your type of thing.

Awesome thanks.

Alright, we can open it up for questions, so feel free to ask. Truly any questions that are on your mind.

Oh, or if you have like something that you really passionate about and want to know if we already have had students do something similar like that allegation like please ask any question that's on your mind.

And thanks for joining us on a Saturday afternoon. So yeah, thank you for taking the time out of your day to come. Come join us.

Are there any service opportunities that work with animals?

Absolutely, and apologies for the animal that is in the background at my house. I tried to kick her out of the office and it didn't work, so that was my dog barking that scared.

Um, yes, Olivia. There are actually tons of opportunities to work with animals. One of the ones with Bonner an. It's also, I think a work study position and a regular volunteering position is there is. It's called Tamarack Wildlife Center and they work with.

Birds, like mostly birds of prey, and it's a rehabilitation Center for birds and mammals, so they do all sorts of like wildan cool stuff. I'm not crazy about like I'm more of an education person in every time I go there. I'm like this is the coolest site ever.

So they do have ALS and they do education for a lot of like local schools and different places. But then they also like actually rehabilitate and take in injured animals. So over the summer I follow them on Facebook and they were fixing turtle shells.

They had a whole bunch of baby possums. They have Eagles that they're kind of rehabilitating to like let back into the wild after they're able to get them healthy. So there are a lot of cool ways. There's also some other sites like Amanda was talking about that would have you kind of working.

At an agency that works with animals, but the kind of biggest one that I can think of that we partner with is Tamarack Wildlife Center.

Didn't.

Yeah, I'm a smaller still. Oh sorry. No Tamarac is awesome. Alot of students. Do you love it? I went there a few times too and I thought it was awesome an another like smaller scale one is as we kind of work more with the animal agency like there's a Humane Society in town or like the rescue farm. There is a another rescue shelter in Erie. So like when I was done I would go to the Humane Society every week. Just 'cause that was kind of something near and dear to my heart like I loved walking dogs and playing with the cats.

And kind of even have continued that, and their students that are there every day doing that. And that's not necessarily affiliated with like a leadership program we have on campus. So usually, if you have like an hour and your week and you want to just go with a friend of yours and play with socialized cats and and walk the dogs, there's plenty of opportunities in that way too.

Are there opportunities within education and working with young kids?

Absolutely, so I would say this is actually the area that we probably have the most opportunities.

There are so many options I truly can't list all of them. We work in local schools, so some of our students actually go into the school and help with like reading, preparedness or work in the classroom. And kind of just help teachers.

With any working with any lessons or working alongside students, we have students that work in a number of after school.

Programming and then we also have students that work at local neighborhood centers and so maybe not traditionally like education based, but they're working with usually younger students.

In those local community neighborhood centers and coming up with lesson plans, I know one that we have worked all the way with children that are elementary or younger all the way up to high school. So there are tons and tons of opportunities to work with young kids and in an education setting more than enough.

These are great, great questions.

Anything else?

In the meantime too, I'll drop my email in the box, just in case you do think of anything. If you don't have anything on your mind at the moment, truly feel free to reach out to me at any point. I'm always happy to connect you with various.

People Department salivia. I mean whoever it may be for service based questions or any of these cohort programs are truly anything that you're interested in. My computer is running a little bit slow now 'cause I was going to send a link for tamarack and stuff like that. So feel free to follow up and I can send you more of that like.

All the links for it, like the specific programs around 2:00.

Yeah.

But if there are no other questions, we can just to wrap up early and thank you all for coming to this today on a Saturday and taking the time out of your day. Truly feel free to reach out with any questions you have. I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend everything the holiday season. Just everything. And yeah, please don't hesitate to reach out at any point to anyone and allocating. We're always happy to help you. So thank you for coming to this and learning more about service and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Thank you.