Colby Cares Day

This is the perfect occasion to give back to the greater Waterville community while working with your fellow students. This year, we have over 20 local sites ranging from the Homeless Shelter to the Hart-to-Hart farm that offer different volunteer opportunities.

***Sign up online:

https://docs.google.com/a/colby.edu/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHFZU1RyTWowUEM1dHVVaEN6LS1HQUE6MQ

Schedule:

10am – Meet in the Foss Dining Hall

• Please wear this year’s CVC t-shirt if you have one
• *** We will have your lunches and T-Shirts for those who don’t have one already

10:30am – Leave for your site

3:00pm - Return to Colby

Bingo Time for Best Buddies

On March 7 at 5:30, the Best Buddies flocked into Dana for a great meal!  After swiping, they were all ready to adventure through the dining hall to find the best possible dinner.  The pizza was gone almost instantly!  Others grabbed penne pasta, roast beef, salad, and other delicious foods.  When everybody had their meals, we sat down in the Fairchild Room as a big group.  We decided to spruce the dinner up a little bit by playing BINGO!

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Everybody got a board  and started playing.  We had a few lucky winners who got to take home some new sunglasses, stylish beads, and more.  Everybody who did not win got peanut butter girl scout cookies.  So really everybody won!  We all had so much fun and cannot wait until our next event: BOWLING!

Best Buddies Dana Dinner

Best Buddies started off second semester in Dana for a great dinner! Fifteen students met up with their respective buddies and ate some delicious pizza, burgers, ravioli, fries, and, of course, ice cream in Dana’s Fairchild Room. We reintroduced ourselves with our name and our favorite cereal or breakfast food. Cinnamon Toast Crunch got the most votes! We all had such an amazing time and cannot wait for our next dinner on Wednesday March 7 at 5:30.

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Welcome Back!

The CVC is up and running and we can’t wait for you to get out into the community this Spring! If you want to learn more about different volunteer opportunities please join us in Miller 014 at 9pm this Wednesday February 8th.

 

Any questions please contact us at cvc@colby.edu

 

Hope to see you soon!

JanPlan Hours

Welcome back to campus,

The CVC will not be holding office hours throughout the month of January. If you need taxi vouchers please email us at cvc@colby.edu.

Happy New Year!

Love,

The CVC

The Colby Campaign Raised $15,888.99 for the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter

We are pleased to announce that the Colby Campaign for the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter has raised nearly $16,000 for the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter’s “Rebuilding Lives Campaign” over the past five weeks. The student-led Center partnered with a number of on and off campus organizations to reach the goal, including local businesses Black Dog Graphics in Clinton and Are You Ready to Party?? in Waterville. The two businesses sponsored t-shirts sold on campus as part of the fundraiser. In addition, Colby College gave a generous donation of $5,000 to support the Shelter through the student campaign.

Around 400 individuals donated to the campaign and approximately 90 percent of donations them were $25 or less. This clearly illustrates how important small donations were to the success of the campaign and that the collective action of many can make a significant impact.

Another key element of the campaign, as we have posted about throughout the month, was to educate Colby students about issues of homelessness. Betty Palmer, Director of the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter, Tony Veit, Youth Outreach Program Coordinator, and Bodhi Simpson, Director of the Teen Parent Program and Clinician at the Alternative High School, spoke at panel discussion at Colby College on youth homelessness. The event was open to the public and the podcast can be accessed here: http://www.colby.edu/news_events/c/b/111811/2600454/colby-volunteer-center-panel-realities-of-youth-homelessness-in-maine/

The Colby Volunteer Center (CVC) would like to thank everyone who contributed to this campaign. For those who supported t-shirt sales, recorded stories, worked at the coat rack, donated online, came to our educational events, talked about the campaign with others and more, the CVC cannot thank you enough for your commitment to the campaign.

If you would like to volunteer at the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter, please contact the CVC at cvc@colby.edu.

A Story from Our Peer

I couch surfed for a couple years before I officially became an unaccompanied throwaway teen—that is, a homeless youth. It took awhile for my high school to pick up on what was going on, which is understandable: I was an AP student who got As in classes, the yearbook editor-in-chief, and a member of class council.

My yearbook advisor intervened and brought me to the school social worker, who initially tried to place me in the local homeless shelter. As a 17 year old female, I refused. The shelter was old and located downtown, surrounded by bars and drunkards. Instead, he pulled strings to get me into a program for homeless young adults. The program set you up in an apartment and gave you a weekly gift card to Hannaford’s for groceries. They let me participate—despite being too young for the program—because it was clear that I was going somewhere.

The program, after I left for Colby, was shut down because their federal funding was discontinued.

As a young woman with no resources and few advocates, some of my experiences from that year were utterly and overwhelming terrifying. At one point, I was threatened with expulsion because I couldn’t prove my residency. Fortunately, the school social worker broke the law and entered a fake address for me in the system. By this point, I was already accepted to Colby on a full scholarship.

I’m a student here now because of a few caring adults and a teacher who helped me pay for standardized testing and college applications. He made sure I applied to Colby College despite the price tag. Without  the intervention of all the adults in this brief story, I would not be where I am now even in spite of my academic and personal talents. The homelessness I experienced is just one type of many, and I hope my experience was enough to shed some light on that.

Thank you.