The Rice Thresher, Vol. 96, No. 23, Ed. 1 Friday, March 20, 2009 Page: 6 of 28
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6 NEWS
the Rice Thresher
Friday, March 20,2009
Outreach Day exposes students to community
By Cindy Dinh
Thresher Editorial Staff
Whether planting trees, register-
ing children for health insurance or
hearing the stories of undocument-
ed workers, Rice students came out
in droves last Saturday to volunteer
with various organizations in the
city as part of Spring Outreach Day,
sponsored by the Rice Student Vol-
unteer Program.
This was the third Outreach Day of
the academic year, a one-day group
volunteering event that introduces
students to the needs of the Houston
community and its social services
organizations. Each semester. Out-
reach Day is coordinated by members
of RSVP. Additionally, the Commu-
nity Involvement Center organizes an
Outreach Day immediately following
Orientation Week each year.
This year, over 175 students vol-
unteered at 23 sites, reflecting the
RSVP committees in health, children,
hunger and homelessness, educa-
tion and environment. Spring Out-
reach Day Agency Contact Coordina-
tor Grace Chang, a Hanszen College
sophomore, said over 360 students
initially signed up, a record high, but
may have been discouraged by the
inclement weather, as half of those
who registered to volunteer attended
Spring Outreach Day.
"If the weather was better, we'd
have a lot more people," Chang said.
Hermann Park
However, Chang said the rain
did not deter some students who
were signed up to maintain flora in
Hermann Park. Despite the event's
cancellation, five students contin-
ued their project assignment, pulling
weeds by the lake and returning wet
and caked with mud, she said.
"The volunteers were enthusiastic
and wanted to go despite the rain,"
Chang said. "It shows how much Rice
students care — sacrificing your own
health and time on a day that wasn't
ideal to go volunteer."
Best Buddies
Ritu Rajan. site leader for the Best
Buddies program, said this one-day
volunteer commitment might spur
future volunteering initiatives, which
was one of the primary objectives of
Outreach Day.
"With Outreach Day, a lot of people
who haven't volunteered before get
exposure to what [RSVP does], which
is great," Rajan, a Lovett College se-
nior, said. "If they like it they start
participating more in our events."
Rajan and others worked with Best
Buddies, an organization dedicated
to enhancing the lives of people with
mental disabilities. Volunteers en-
gage them in conversation and spend
one-on-one time with them. Even
though volunteering opportunities
with the Best Buddies program occur
throughout the year, it was Rajan's
first time volunteering with them.
"I liked it so much, now I want to
get involved," she said. "Even though
I'm graduating this year I might want
to do it after graduation."
DePelchin Children's Center
Brown College junior Eric Rut-
ledge said he felt the same way af-
ter he volunteered at the DePelchin
Children's Center-Youth Residential
Treatment Center, a shelter that pro-
vides a safe learning environment for
children from abused families or who
are suffering from depression and
other behavioral conditions.
"It was my first time there,
but I'd definitely go back again,"
Rutledge said.
The group that he led played board
games and watched movies with teens
ranging in age from 13-17 years.
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Volunteering at the Star of Hope Mission on Outreach Day, three Rice students helped sort hundreds of items
donated to the faith-based homeless shelter.
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"Once we got to know them, it was
really fun. We got really competitive
and formed teams playing boardgames
for five-year-olds," Rutledge said.
Houston Interfaith
Workers Justice
At the Houston Interfaith Worker
Justice site, volunteers went to street
corners to talk with construction
workers who were self-contracted or
self-employed, Hanszen senior Frank
An said. The organization works to
fight for undocumented workers' un-
paid wages.
"They would go weeks and weeks
without a job," An, the outgoing
RSVP treasurer, said. "But at the very
end, even when they did the job, they
wouldn't get paid."
Hearing the stories of undocu-
mented workers was a moving expe-
rience and a wake-up call, he said.
"You really got to see unem-
ployed, primarily Hispanic workers,
tell their background," An said. "One
guy had an MBA; one guy had a com-
puter science degree in Mexico, yet
now they're construction workers.
They wanted a better life, but didn't
get one here."
Children's Defense Fund
As part of Children's Defense Fund's
Student Health Outreach program
(CDF SHOUT), Hanszen sophomore
Courtney Ng went to Park Place Library
to help register children for the State
Children Health Insurance Program.
They are working with the Houston
Independent School District to have all
students registered for either private or
public health insurance.
"The idea behind our involvement
is to raise awareness about SCHIP
and ease the enrollment process,"
Ng, RSVP's outgoing education com-
mittee chair, said. "Children with
health insurance are able to go to the
doctor; they get treatment faster; and
the cost in general is much lower."
Volunteers helped parents fill out
applications for their children and
translated directions on how to ap-
ply, she said. They also set up board
games and activites for the children
while they waited.
Ng said the CDF SHOUT coordina-
tors, Brown senior Connie Foo and
Baker College senior Yordanos Ge-
bretatios, took the project to the next
level by carefully identifying their
target audience.
"[Foo and Gebretatios] were able
to find out what neighborhoods in
Houston were most in need of health
insurance," Ng said. "They talked with
professors who have done surveys and
figured out which neighborhoods to
go to. Then they coordinated with the
local library and did outreach to local
schools around the library."
Implementing marketing strate-
gies increased the program's public-
ity, Ng said.
"When people came out, it wasn't
just because CDF SHOUT brought them
out," she said. "We brought them out."
Children's Assessment Center
Located in the Rice Village,
the Children's Assesment Center
is an advocacy center for sexually
abused children.
"It was cool to find a volunteering
opportunity so close to Rice that I did
not know existed," Baker junior Cole
Perry said.
Volunteers helped maintain the
areas by cleaning out the kitchen and
play room and organized the pantry,
clothes closet and library, Perry said.
Methodist Hospital
To celebrate St. Patrick's day, volun-
teers helped patients paint and deco-
rate terra cotta pots at nearby Methodist
Hospital. Will Rice College sophomore
Susan Su said the pots were then filled
with flowers for the patients.
"Some of [the patients] might have
had bad mornings, so we cheered
them up and talked to them," Su said.
About a dozen volunteers paired
off to visit with patients in two floors
of the hospital.
Trees for Houston
Joanna Luo, site leader for Trees
for Houston, said her group of 10 vol-
unteers bore the wet weather while
trimming trees along White Oak Bay-
ou Park near US Highway 290/North-
west Freeway.
"It was really cold that day and
somewhat drizzling, but we still man-
aged to trim the entire strip of land
they gave us," Luo, a Jones College
freshman, said.
A staff member from Trees for
Houston called the volunteers earlier
in the morning to see if they wanted
to cancel due to the weather, but the
group continued with their plans.
"Since we already put in so much
effort [organizing transportation], we
might as well do it," Luo said.
The volunteers learned how to
identify the different types of trees
in the area in order to select which
ones to trim. She estimated the group
trimmed between 75 to 100 trees along
a two-mile stretch of roadway.
"We trimmed the trees down
so they wouldnt interfere with the
roads or sidewalks," Luo said. "We
learned that trees don't grow up,
thev grow sideways."
Unlike in her previous experi-
ences volunteering, Luo said she
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Michel, Casey. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 96, No. 23, Ed. 1 Friday, March 20, 2009, newspaper, March 20, 2009; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443137/m1/6/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.