September 18, 2014
On Saturday, September 13, more than 150 Hamilton students took part in Make a Difference Day, sponsored by Hamilton Association for Volunteering Outreach and Charity (HAVOC), an event which served a total of 23 sites in the area. Service projects included clearing weeds and branches at Heritage Farm, sorting books at the Utica Public Library, cleaning cages, doing laundry and playing with cats at Spring Farm Cares animal shelter and spending time with nursing home residents at the Masonic Care Community.
“It’s a really great opportunity to get as many people on campus as possible to volunteer all at the same time. There are students from all class years and it is open to everyone,” HAVOC Co-Director Emily Chan ’16 said. “It gathers a lot of attention because it’s not a humongous commitment -- you don’t have to go every week. And the sites really like having the Hamilton students there helping them out.”
Make a Difference Day is HAVOC’s biggest service day of the year, according to Chan. It is slightly bigger than the spring semester’s Martin Luther King Day service project because the weather is better and there is outdoor work to do.
Students can participate individually or in groups, and out-of-season sports teams, sororities and fraternities and groups of friends all signed up to volunteer together. It took four buses, one minibus, one jitney and two HAVOC cars to transport all the participants to sites in Utica, Rome, Clinton and Kirkland. Chan said Make a Difference Day is a great bonding activity for organizations, one that lets students bond and help the community at the same time.
“You get to meet new people. You get to bond with the people you go on your trip with,” said HAVOC’s other director, James Hunter ’17. “Whenever I see people who were in my group on Martin’s Way, I always say hi to them because we shared that experience of going to a site and working together and doing some good work.”
Nathalia Mahabir ’17 said the Make a Difference Day experience was rewarding before she even left campus.
“It starts at school when you get together with other people who are on the same mission as you: to help the community in whatever way you can,” she said. “In my group, I had only ever met one person before and I had the greatest time with the other volunteers. We were able to share stories and enjoy the experience together.”
Mahabir spent the day at Colonial Park Rehab and Nursing Center in Rome.
“It was very touching talking to many of the elderly people and hearing their amazing stories,” Mahabir said. “I personally met an old man who is a music producer, but surprisingly is also blind. Music is the way he sees the world. He gave me a CD and asked me to listen to it and then write him a letter telling him what I thought. I ensured that a nurse would be able to read it for him and I promised that I would soon send the letter. It was a very comforting feeling knowing that I could spend three hours simply playing games and talking to the residents and they would have a smile on their face for the rest of the day.”
Nicole Mion ’16 also went to a nursing home, the Hazel Carpenter Home for senior citizens in Oneida.
“The most rewarding part was making these peoples’ days. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in assisted living or senior care homes because my grandma was in one, so I know that sometimes their routines can be fairly monotonous and mundane and events like this can honestly brighten their whole day or even week,” Mion said. “The best part was probably when we sang with them. It was hard to find songs we both knew but when we did, like ‘Amazing Grace,’ ‘You Are My Sunshine’ and ‘Oh Danny Boy,’ their faces just lit up.”
Make a Difference Day was Chan and Hunter’s first major event as HAVOC directors. They began talking about dates last May and planning began in earnest in early August. They called sites in the area to see which ones needed volunteers and contacted organizations from last month’s first-year Hamilton Serves orientation event. Additionally, they coordinated bus routes, provided lunches for the volunteers and publicized Make a Difference Day.
“We have students from all different parts of Hamilton College go out and explore the local communities,” Hunter said. “A lot of students might go their Hamilton month or their Hamilton year and just kind of stay on the Hill and not necessarily experience all the surroundings. I think Make a Difference Day does a great job in getting students off the Hill.”
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