Written by Street Team Member Rosa Martinez
Service-Learning provides a great opportunity for students to bring materials from their service-learning course into other areas of their lives.
Avery Collard, an undergraduate student studying psychology, began her journey of volunteering back in high school. At Northeastern, she is a service-learning student in a course called Writing Home where students learn about the Boston community while volunteering with an organization called Everyday Boston.
What is Everyday Boston?
Everyday Boston is a nonprofit organization that creates connections between various Boston community members from different backgrounds through storytelling. Their Essentials People Project prepares community members to conduct interviews with essential workers to understand how COVID-19 has affected them.
While Avery was serving at Everyday Boston, she helped with their Valentine’s Day project known as #LoveYourWickedAwesomeNeighbor. As part of the project, Avery and others at Everyday Boston created Valentine’s Day cards to pass out around the neighborhood.
Avery loved this idea so much that she decided to present it to her team at CHAARG Northeastern where she is the Founder Ambassador.
What is CHAARG?
CHAARG is a health and fitness national organization that empowers women in their fitness journey. The organization has over 100 chapters across the country and Avery founded the NU Chapter, which has grown to have over 100 members! CHAARG Northeastern hosts weekly in-person workouts with different types of fun activities. Some of these great workouts include spin classes, crossfit classes, and more. Due to COVID-19, CHAARGE runs virtual workouts and COVID friendly in-person outdoor workouts!
Avery and her team wanted to do something that would bring the community together, so they decided to collect 117 Valentine’s Day cards from members at CHAARG and started passing them out to people in the community and left them on benches for people in the community to see.
Avery has used her passion for serving the community while on co-op as well! She did her co-op at the Reebok Foundation where she partnered with different women and children’s organizations to promote fitness equality. It was important for Avery to assist with the community’s assets in mind, a core belief of the service-learning program.
As college students, we could transfer the community asset ideas onto our daily lives. Being active members in the community can help build relationships with the community. We could also show other people how they can be active community members to create a greater impact in community service.
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