Media Release
March 6, 2013
Every June, volunteers spread out across the city to paint, fix, clean and do myriad other chores during the United Way’s Day of Caring.
The event, during which United Way member agencies get some help to do the maintenance and other work they may not be able to do themselves, falls at a time when Queen’s University students have left the city. So, for the past five years, the university’s United Way committee has been holding its own special Day of Caring during the school year.
On Thursday, a group of students will be rolling up their sleeves and heading to Big Brothers Big Sisters on Princess Street, the Boys and Girls Club on Bagot Street and to the St. Vincent de Paul Society on Stephen Street to tackle whatever work needs to be done.
Taylor Jennings, who, with Alex Blaine is a co-chair of the university’s United Way committee, said
they had hoped to make it to five different agencies but mid-terms and other school requirements have diminished their numbers a bit.
Organizing a full Day of Caring for the Queen’s community has been an exhilarating task, she said, especially now they have opened it up to the larger Queen’s population.
“We’re excited,” she said. “It’s very rewarding.”
The students will be working in the warehouse at St. Vincent de Paul, sorting out the supplies. At Big Brothers Big Sisters they will be doing some inventory work. And at the Boys and Girls Club “we are actually getting to paint,” she said.
“That one is one that quite a few of the volunteers are looking forward to. That’s always a fun one to do.”
The two agencies the Queen’s students didn’t have the manpower to handle on Thursday, The Canadian Hearing Society and the Frontenac-Kingston Council on Aging, will be getting a visit from the volunteers at the beginning of April.
The Queen’s Day of Caring is an effort that is definitely appreciated, said United Way executive director and CEO Bhavana Varma.
“We have enjoyed a long history of a strong relationship with Queen’s students through the AMS and this is something they like to do and it has grown over time.” she said.
“The youth, certainly, they raise money for the United Way but what we have found most rewarding is that they want to give back. They like to go into agencies and do some hands-on work to get a better sense of what the agencies’ work involves.”
The two co-chairs of the event also sit on the fund distribution panel to decide where the money raised by the United Way goes.
“That’s another way that they get involved.”
Varma said the Alma Mater Society at Queen’s has been supporting the United Way “forever,” as has the university as a whole.
Last year the students, staff and faculty raised over $330,000 for the annual campaign, the largest workplace amount in the region. The students raised over $20,000.
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