The Dornsife Center for Community Engagement organized a series of environmentally focused volunteer opportunities to celebrate Earth Day throughout April.
“Every volunteer event I tried to organize was all linked to environmental actions, and this one was my big one,” said Ny Ary Razafindramamba, a junior Community Engagement Advocate (CEA) who is passionate about the environment.
These events included a showing of a new documentary about the people of the Nez Perce Tribe and a panel of tribe members on April 17. The second event was a community gardening event where CEAs partnered with local non-profit Growing Neighbors on April 19. Finally, there was a hike and tree planting event put on by the Land Council at Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge on April 26.
“The events were created with the intention of getting Whitworth students out into the community,” said Natalie Achenbach, a senior CEA.
“I think it’s just sweet to be able to know your neighbors, because we can really live behind a pinecone curtain,” said Achenbach.
Julius Nzima is a first-year marketing student who volunteered with the community garden, which was led by Achenbach.
“It was an interesting experience,” said Nzima. “I would say it has nothing to do with my major, but I decided to just make use of my time.”
The volunteers walked to the garden where they were going to work, which is close to campus. They were taught by members of the community about how to garden and grow plants, according to Achenbach.
“It’s just cool that we get to not only like have a good impact on investing in our community but also learn really cool skills and make valuable connections,” said Achenbach.
The advertising for these events was especially unique. The only advertisements the CEAs used were a large poster in the Hixon Union Building (HUB) and small pamphlets in the dining hall. Achenbach said this is because the CEAs didn’t want to waste paper by printing out many posters.
“Our team was brainstorming the best way to do this,” said Achenbach. “We want to be consistent with our efforts to revitalize the environment.”
They advertised by tabling in the HUB and by talking to people in the dining hall and around campus. “Words of mouth are more powerful here at Whitworth,” said Razafindramamba.
The CEAs found this method to be effective in getting students to volunteer. They had many students sign up for the Land Council event. However, because the community garden event was over Easter break weekend, they did not have many people sign up, according to Razafindramamba.
“This was our peak this year as Dornsife,” said Razafindramamba, “There’s struggles there, but we also see some success on the side.”
These events are made possible because of the CEAs’ efforts to organize, plan, and recruit volunteers to go out into the community and serve.
“[The CEAs] are the ones who grabs out attention as students, to spend our time in this kind of work,” said Nzima.
Dornsife advertises volunteer opportunities by TV screens around campus, through their Instagram @whitworthserves, and by talking to CEAs on campus. “Give it a try,” said Achenbach. “You don’t know how transformative an afternoon of serving can be.”
