Be In That Number!

Community Service, Service Learning, and Advocacy at Tulane

As one of few universities that requires all students to complete serving learning before they graduate, it may come as no surprise that community service is a huge aspect of many Tulane students lives.

Aside from the Community Service Fellowship scholarship program and the two-tiered service-learning graduation requirement, there are many ways that Tulane students get involved with community service and/or advocacy based work on or off campus!

Swim 4 Success volunteers teach water safety skills and basic swimming
skills to local children at the Reily Recreation Center.

One of the main ways current students get involved is by joining one of nearly 50 organizations that fall under the Community Action Council of Tulane University Students (CACTUS). The CACTUS umbrella is a student-run resource council within the Undergraduate Student Government (USG). We receive funding and support from the university to provide transportation, logistical support, and other useful resources for our organizations to complete daily, weekly, and monthly service opportunities.

CACTUS organizations are divided into five affinity groups that work together to co-program, share ideas, plan events, and work with non-profits, governmental organizations, and other community partners around the New Orleans area. We have organizations working with and for youth in the city, health-related organizations, global service programs, serving to improve Tulane, and providing community support.

If you don’t see something on our list of active organizations, you can start one while you are here! All we ask is that you find 10 other current students that are also interested in being a member of the organization and a faculty or staff advisor! 

Tulane's first and only service dog program, TUSTEP, aims to raise and
train disability assistance dogs for Canine Companions for Independence. 

CACTUS has seen tremendous growth through the years, adding numerous projects and inspiring thousands of students to volunteer.

One of the most well known service initiatives on campus is the Outreach Tulane Day of Service. Outreach Tulane is a student-run university-wide day of service that provides ~1,000 students the opportunity to volunteer at dozens of locations around the city. It occurs on the first Saturday of each school year, welcoming students back to campus each Fall.

Check out the videos below to see what else the Tulane Center for Public Service and CACTUS do to support the local community!

What will you do to be in that number?

 

Volunteering at Tulane: planting seeds of hope

Guest blogger: Wil Crary

Tired of the Boot?  Looking for some meaningful group activities that don’t involve Maple Street? Don’t let New Orleans fool you!  The amount of ways to engage yourself in the community that don’t involve debauchery and imbibement might knock your tipsy socks off.  With activities ranging from monthly events to daily commitments, both your casual volunteer and service-extraordinaire will find something to satisfy their interests.  Ophir Haberer, one of my main partners in crime (and by crime I mean community service), remains a close friend and a constant inspiration.  Constantly engaged with the greater New Orleans community, Ophir pushes himself and his peers to achieve their true potential in order to better the lives of others. 

Ophir’s community-driven mindset here at Tulane all started with a day-trip to the Lower Ninth Ward Village, an eccentric community center with a variety of characters and sources of entertainment. In the fall of 2010, Ophir saw the opportunity for a partnership with the director of the community center who was stoked to begin a solid relationship with some enthusiastic Tulane students. After being drawn to the dilapidated raised-garden beds, which the director informed Ophir were necessary due to the contamination of the post-Katrina soil, and informed of the eminent food desert resulting from the lack of available fresh produce in the area, it became clear to Ophir which direction he wanted to kickstart his endeavors.

And so began our saga (excuse the theatrics).  Ophir spearheaded funding through the university alongside his equally inspiring twin brother Dor (yes, there are two of these incredible creatures crawling around our campus), while I rallied a team of excited and fairly unequipped volunteers, a motley crew of our close friends (and not-so-close friends) and classmates.  After tossing around a variety of possible names, Ophir made the executive decision to bestow upon us a name that concisely states our mission and purpose: The Hope Gardens Project.  The Lower Ninth Village community center’s quaint little garden was full of concrete, glass, weeds, and more agricultural nightmares, but all hope remained.

To make a long story short, we were too hopeful. Damn. However, the disorganization of the community center didn’t deter us.  We knew our focus had to stay on the beautification of the educational, healthy-lifestyle conducive gardens.  Tulane, with joint support from CACTUS and Hillel, provided us with the resources. Our 20+ volunteers showed us their commitment, while Ophir, Dor, and I never lost hope.  We said our goodbyes and parted ways with the Village because our goals didn’t quite match up, and so our search for a community partner continued.

Then came the Sankofa Community Development Corporation, an organization with a name reminding all of us to “move forward while looking backwards”.  Sankofa’s unique goal of re-instilling the values of urban agriculture and available fresh produce to the lower ninth ward drew us to them immediately.  The community gardens were beautiful, the farmer’s market was lively, and the neighborhood seemed to rally around the idea of coming together to stamp out the crippling food desert.  

Every Saturday, we would take our volunteers down to KIPP Renaissance, a charter school in the area, to maintain their on-campus garden, renovate the unutilized space, work alongside students, and learn about the importance of fresh produce.  We also were pivotal in starting Sankofa’s blueberry farm, which was nothing more than an empty lot when we arrived (well, not counting the overgrown weeds, piles of trash, and debris). We had a solid year of commitment, but again we felt our resources were being misused and that our wonderful volunteers were being under-appreciated. On to the next one, we declared!

We felt that we were capable of being a more autonomous group, having proved our gardening efficacy on campus through the Wall Garden (which everyone should check out!) which flourished with carrots, kale, herbs, beets, radishes, and more.  Likewise, we work hard to introduce a culture of composting and conscious food disposal. Ophir and I both went abroad last semester, but fortunately Dor and our good friends Melissa Makous and Zoe Swartz courageously took charge. Our new projects are flourishing, but there is always work to be done. We’ve got two big projects on the way and are always looking for more dedicated volunteers who want to learn about urban farming or who just want to spend a beautiful Saturday morning outside instead of writhing around in bed fighting off an inevitable hangover.  Send us an email at tulanegardengang@gmail.com, or get directly in contact with Wil Crary, Ophir Haberer, or Melissa Makous through our Tulane emails.

See you in the gardens (hopefully),

The Hope Gardens Project