Cal State Long Beach’s ninth annual “Seven Days of Service” week, lasting from Oct. 19 to Oct. 25, provides opportunities for CSULB students to get more involved in helping citizens of the Long Beach community.
The week also highlights past volunteer work of CSULB students, faculty and staff.
Make a Difference Day service project, one of the week’s more popular events, is the last event of the week and reached its maximum capacity of 100 volunteers on October 15th. Reserved for the last Saturday of October as a national holiday of service, this service project helps refurbish a private residence in Long Beach for the entire day.
The project originally began as an alley clean-up for the first two years. Now it focuses on refurbishing homes along with Rebuilding Together Long Beach, a volunteer agency that helps CSULB find its sites for Make a Difference Day.
Brett Waterfield, coordinator of Make a Difference Day for the past nine years, began this project to help unite CSULB students with the Long Beach community.
“I am always looking for new ways to have students, faculty, and staff to engage in the community,” Waterfield said. “The more we can get campus representatives to become a part of the community, the more we can bridge the gap and show the connection between the campus and the community.”
Also a part of “Seven Days of Service” week this year is CSULB’s first annual food drive. Juan Benitez, director of the week’s events for the past two years, hopes the weeklong drive will raise awareness and address the issue of poverty within the community.
“The most important aspect of this week is that it can highlight the community work faculty, students and staff do and provide more opportunities to address some of the most important issues in the surrounding Long Beach community,” Benitez said.
Throughout campus 49 boxes will be placed for the entire week. The collected goods will be donated to Boys Town California to help provide food for needy children both in and around the Long Beach community. As for the rest of the week’s events, hundreds are expected to attend throughout the week, especially to the more popular events, including Volunteer Round-up, Community-Campus Dialogue and Make a Difference Day.
“The mission of this university is to produce students with ‘highly valued educational opportunities,’ which connects how are students address the needs of society,” Benitez said. “It is important to make students aware of opportunities, recognize those who are already involved, and to develop community and university relations.”