Students from afar volunteer in Greenville during spring break

While some Upstate college students were volunteering in other states during their spring break, Boston University students were doing likewise here in Greenville.

A group of 10 Boston University students spent their week-long spring break at Pendleton Place for Children & Families and the Frazee Dream Center, helping out in a variety of ways.

Their trip was arranged through the university’s Alternative Service Break (ASB) program, one of 14 volunteer programs run through Boston University’s Community Service Center. The mission of ASB is to empower and educate BU students by engaging with communities across the United States while striving to find sustainable solutions.

Since 1988, Boston University student volunteers have spent their service breaks participating in volunteer work throughout the country, with focuses on the environment, children, affordable housing, hunger, education, public health, LGBTQ+ and disabilities, the university said.

Youth was the emphasis of the volunteers’ trip to Greenville this year. Students Katherine Yau and Martina Corona, coordinators of the trip, said they both are “very into the youth aspect” of community service and thought Greenville would be a great fit.

“I’ve worked with youth for a lot of my community service things, to kind of be there for them, have a conversation, laugh, play, run with them,” said Yau.

The Frazee Center is a free preschool, after school and summer program for under resourced children in the downtown Greenville area. The mission of Pendleton Place is “to keep children safe and support families in crisis through prevention, assessment and intervention.”

At Frazee, the Boston University volunteers hung out with the kids in the afterschool program, Yau said.

The volunteers were in the classroom supporting the teachers in whatever they needed, and helping the children with their reading skills and homework, she said.

“We just kind of stepped in and hopefully made things more fun for them,” she said.

Outdoors, they provided encouragement to kids in the running club.

“We were fortunate enough to be able to run the laps with the girls and motivate them to keep going,” Corona said. “It’s definitely fun on our part.”

At Pendleton Place, the students helped around the grounds, did facilities work and organized and sorted through the donations’ room, Corona said. They also planned to make pizzas for the girls at Pendleton Place and to host a spa night, she said.

Jenny Reeves, co-director of the Frazee Center, said the center has hosted Boston University students in the past and they’re always a very impressive group.

“Sometimes it’s their first experience with poverty at all and so that’s really fun for us to not just recruit them South, but to tell them when they go back home to find something to be involved,” Reeves said. “Sometimes they have such an awakening here to the fact that poverty is everywhere.”

“We have been blown away that they are so socially aware of what’s going on. They know about so many different issues and they get involved,” she said.

Yau believes each individual holds a responsibility to make their community better.

“I think it’s important to be doing something,” Yau said. “It might not be the most substantial thing, like I know we might not be able to change the world everyday, but we can try to make it better every day.

Likewise, said Corona, “We all have a responsibility to make the public what we want it to be and change society for the better.

“Through Boston University’s Community Service Center, they’ve offered a lot of different programs that I’ve been able to participate in to kind of open my eyes to that,” Corona said. “We may not be able to change the people’s lives that we’re working with, but if you can make one kid smile five minutes more than they did yesterday, then you did your job.”

The Frazee Center has gotten student volunteers from other colleges across the country. Carson-Newman University students spent their spring break at the center this year as well.

When the college students come, “I don’t have nearly the discipline problems. Everybody’s got somebody to work with for homework,” Reeves said. “It really gives us kind of a little shot in the arm. It’s a real boost.”

You can help!

For more information about volunteering at the Frazee Dream Center visit http://www.frazeecenter.com/ and the Pendleton Place for Children & Families visit http://www.pendletonplace.org/