Created and organized by Holy Cross student Jeff Reppucci ’14 (below, right), Working for Worcester is a citywide project that mobilized hundreds of student volunteers from across Worcester, as well as folks from sponsoring companies, including Unum and The Hanover Insurance Company. After registration and speeches at the morning kickoff event at the Hart Center, groups dispersed to about a dozen work sites to construct new and renovate outdated family spaces, play areas, libraries and more. With tens of thousands of dollars donated, along with supplies and skilled labor, Working for Worcester garnered regional media attention.
At the kick-off event at the Hart Center, College President Rev. Philip Boroughs, S.J., (above left) spoke to the gathered crowd. (Photo by Dan Vaillancourt)
Volunteers posed for a group shot at one of the work sites, the Goddard School of Science and Technology, which serves 586 students from Kindergarten to 6th grade. (Photo by Patrick O’Connor)
One of the Goddard projects was prepping community garden boxes with fresh soil. (Photo by Patrick O’Connor)
At the Elm Park Community School, volunteers painted murals and gave the library and cafeteria a lift. They also installed playground equipment. (Photo by Patrick O’Connor)
Artists like this Crusader seemed to be having a blast at their work site. (Photo by Patrick O’Connor)
At the Worcester Youth Center, the girls’ dance team and a variety of after-school dance programs used a large empty space with a cement floor as their “dance studio.” The cement floor, in particular, was very limiting and possibly harmful to dancers’ knees. Working for Worcester volunteers prepped the space to receive a new, professional-quality hardwood dance studio floor AND a surround-sound corner-mounted speaker system. Walls got fresh paint, mirrors were hung around the perimeter, and a ballet stretching bar was installed on the west side of the room. (Photo by Patrick O’Connor)
The NROTC battalion got its hands dirty at South High School, where a lot of debris and brush around the grounds needed to be cleared to make way for upgraded outdoor play spaces and new plantings. (Photo by Matthew Atanian)
Over at The Belmont Street School, volunteers chalked out and painted basketball, hopscotch and four-square courts to make better use of a paved outdoor area. (Photo by Dan Vaillancourt)
Tags: co-curricular, community, Crusaders, events, Fr. Boroughs, NROTC, off-campus, ROTC, service, students, volunteer, Worcester