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Volume CXXXII, Number 4 |
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Bowdoin community bonds in serving Common Good
ALEX CORNELL DU HOUX
STAFF WRITER
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| A student proudly models the Common Good Day t-shirt presented to all volunteers. Students and faculty worked side by side on projects such as trail work, cemetary mapping, shelving books, wall papering, and overall cleaning. (Karsten Moran, Bowdoin Orient) |
Over 325 students, staff and faculty came together for an afternoon of community service in the greater Brunswick and Portland areas on September 28. "Common Good Day provides the opportunity for the community, local business organizations, and community partners to come together with Bowdoin students, staff, faculty, alumni and friends to serve the common good and create lasting partnerships for community service," said Eric Morin '02 who now works as the Common Good Day coordinator and AmeriCorps*VISTA volunteer at the College's Community Service Resource Center.
This year's fourth annual Common Good Day was so successful, coordinators had to start a waiting list as scores of students, employees, alumni and friends of Bowdoin rushed to sign up for one of over 30 service projects. The projects included adding books and shelves at the Topsham Public Library, preparing Fire Prevention Week educational materials for the Midcoast American Red Cross, and cemetery mapping for Brunswick Open Space and Recreation Task Force. Other tasks included cleaning, painting, wallpapering, and yard and trail work for organizations including the YMCA, Ronald McDonald House, Hospice Volunteers, and the Tedford Shelter.
Some of the more popular projects included demolishing a house for the Nature Conservatory, working at a farm with horses, cleaning up a beach, and painting murals in the basements of Moore and Maine.
"[Organizing Common Good Day has] been hectic and confusing and fun. Much like a roller coaster ride, if you will," Morin said. "Lydia Bell [Coordinator of Student Community Service Programs] has helped by providing endless wisdom and guidance and her leadership has made organizing Common Good Day a pleasurable and worthwhile experience."
One of the goals of Common Good Day is to introduce students to volunteerism and encourage them to enrich their college experience through future service projects. By the time they graduate, 70 percent of all students will have participate in some form of community service at Bowdoin.
Common Good Day takes it name from one of the principles outlined in1802 inaugural address of Bowdoin's first president, Joseph McKeen: "It ought always to be remembered that literary institutions are founded and endowed for the Common Good, and not for the private advantage of those who resort to them for education."