Make a Difference Day at Duke University

Make a Difference Day with the Duke Office of Student Community Volunteer Programs here at Duke University was a two site setup coordinated mainly by our fearless VISTA* Neil Hoefs. Neil coordinated with local partners Read Seed and Duke Community Garden for a morning of service in Durham.

At the Duke Community Garden, volunteers gleaned leftover produce for eventual distribution at the Durham Food Bank.

My role in the event was to manage the Read Seed Site on Duke's West Campus. We had a great location in the very heart of the campus quad thanks to the help of fellow sponsor Jenni Davidson with the Sophomore Year Experience. Ian Wolf, fellow Literacy Corps member at Duke, also helped out at the site. We worked with Adelaide from Read Seed to prepare for their annual Read-A-Thon in November. Volunteers helped out by drawing storybook characters and creating "yellow bricks" that will decorate the Read-A-Thon..

Ian working on his character: Thing #1

We had around 10-12 volunteers throughout the morning at our site, and a similar amount at the Garden. It was encouraging to see how passers-by wanted to get involved and were interested to learn more about Make a Difference Day in general. We answered a lot of questions and brought attention to the work Adelaide and Read Seed do here in Durham to bring more books to children. Also, Adelaide was very pleased with our work and seemed sincerely thankful for our service.

Working in pairs, we were able to make 3 or 4 characters for the Read-a-Thon and I believe we signed some people up to volunteer on that date. After that we had pizza and soda at the quad. Overall, it was a good day that encouraged our partners and volunteers.