Here to Serve

Posted by: Webmaster, St. Stephen's Youth Programs on: April 26, 2010

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On Saturday, April 24^th, the Restoring Lenox! Project (set up through the Massachusetts Promise Fellowship’s Opportunity to Serve National Day of Service) took place at our LEARN @ Lenox after-school program site in Lower Roxbury. In total, 52 volunteers took part in the various service projects that were organized to “revamp, repair, and rejuvenate” the Lenox building and area. The day of service brought together 29 college volunteers from Regis College, Northeastern University, Pace University, and Boston College. We also had 7 volunteers from AVOYCE (Asian Voices of Organized Youth for Community Empowerment), 6 of our very own St. Stephen’s Youth Programs staff members, and 4 Massachusetts Promise Fellowship fellows, as well as 6 volunteers from the Church of St. Augustine and St. Martin who provided tons of delicious and energizing food to get us through the day.

 The various projects that took place on our Opportunity to Serve day included getting out into the neighborhood to clean up trash and recruit and inform people about the wonderful programs that are offered through St. Stephen’s Youth Programs. On site at Lenox, we had groups of volunteers working on landscaping the building’s side lawn.  Weeds were uprooted, bushes and hedges trimmed, beautiful plants and flowers planted, and mulch laid down to breathe new life into the garden. Inside, the after-school program’s classrooms, hallways, and bathrooms were repainted, bringing brightness and cleanliness to the indoor facilities that are used daily by our young people. The outdoor gates and fences were also repainted, and the after-school program’s library was reorganized, bringing order and freshness to the building. And finally, a beautiful mural was painted, whose colors, brightness, and loving liveliness serve as a representation of all the wonderful young people we serve in our after-school and summer programs.

All together, the Opportunity to Serve event was a huge success — a day in which a diverse group of people from all many areas of Massachusetts, differing in age, experience, and background, came together to serve one beautifully unified purpose: to make the LEARN @ Lenox community a safe, welcoming, and fun place for our young people to grow and develop.

Posted by Felicia Waldron, LEARN @ Lenox Volunteer Coordinator and Massachusetts Promise Fellow