Students Participate in First Terp Service Day of the Year

On Oct. 13, dozens of University of Maryland students woke up early on their Saturday morning and braved the chilly air to participate in the first Terp Service Day of the year, an event sponsored by the student-led program TerpCorps where students volunteer together at local community partners.

Students volunteered at Community Forklift in Hyattsville, A Wider Circle in Silver Spring, and the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, or M-NCPPC, in College Park, according to junior chemical biomolecular engineering major and TerpCorps coordinator Yoon Shin.

Senior English major Nancy Canalies, and member of the Incentive Rewards Program, a University run program to recognize students who want to better the community while at school, was a first time attendee at Terp Service Day, and volunteered with a group from the program.

“One of the principles of our scholarship is someone who is really involved in the community and willing to give back,” Canalies said. “So all of us are really excited to be here.”

Terp Service Day consists of three components: education, service and reflection.

Before participating in the service part of the day, students learn about the issues found the places they will visit and volunteer. The education portion is meant to show students why they should help the community program, and get their mindset ready for the service activity, said Shin.

“I really like to be involved with the community, so I got an email and I signed up right away,” freshman neurobiology and physiology major Molly Timmins said.

For about three hours, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., students volunteered at the three different sites while learning about the different social issues prevalent at each location and interacting with the people at each community partner.

At A Wider Circle, students helped families load furniture from the warehouse into trucks to be taken back to the families’ homes. Sorting through donations and determining what donations were in a fit condition to be sold was another task, according to TerpCorps intern Naina Soni.

The students who assisted MNCPPC picked up trash on Paintbranch trail and cut down invasive bamboo species. At Community Forklift there were a variety of tasks, such as sorting through paint containers and removing the dried and unusable containers. Students also sorted lumber to determine what could be re-used and recycled, said Soni.

The third component, reflection, wraps up the day and allows the students to discuss what they learned through their volunteer work and their feelings regarding the issues they witnessed.

“I’ve been looking for community service stuff and this seemed like a really cool opportunity,” said sophomore government and policy major Austin Trupp. “When I walked in here, everyone seemed to have a legitimate exuberance about the day and passion.”

This is the third year Terp Service Days have been in action, run out of the Leadership and Community Service-Learning Unit within the Adele H. Stamp Student Union. For this year, Community Forklift, A Wider Circle and M-NCPPC are the three community partners Terp Service Day will create a partnership with by volunteering for the organizations throughout the whole year.

“[Terp Service Days] went from being in their first year, days with three to 10 people, to last year anywhere between 30 to 100 people,” Coordinator for Local Community Service-Learning Unit Deborah Slosberg said. “They’ve really grown in the last year.”

Events take place about once a month, and by working with the three community partners on a more regular basis, a mutual beneficial partnership should hopefully be established, Slosberg said.

The Leadership and Community Service-Learning Unit coordinates alternative breaks along with Terps for Change, a program where students volunteer once a week for the semester.

“It was really important that we have a gateway into service learning for students who weren’t quite ready to make that every single day a week commitment,” Slosberg said. “Terp Service Days gives students an opportunity to do a one time day of service.”