For the seventh year, a team of Bates College students is coordinating a program that matches fellow students with volunteer opportunities in the Lewiston-Auburn region.

The seven Student Volunteer Fellows at Bates during the 2008-09 academic year are seniors Jessica Adelman of Waban, Mass.; Hiu Man Christine Chiu of Hong Kong; Anne Fischer of Far Hills, N.J.; Erin Gilligan of Windham; Julie Miller-Hendry of Bedford, Mass.; and sophomores Chelsea Pennucci of Mamaroneck, N.Y. and Diane Saunders of Durham, N.C.

The Student Volunteer Fellows support the volunteer program run by the Harward Center for Community Partnerships at Bates, a center designed to weave together campus and community for the enrichment of both liberal education and public life.

The Fellows coordinate volunteer projects for Bates students, with each Fellow responsible for a partnership with a particular community program. The Fellows help structure the Bates Volunteerism Program as a whole, they recruit and coordinate volunteers, and they participate in the various volunteer activities themselves.

Opportunities for volunteer work involve hundreds of Bates students every semester in projects ranging from Make-a-Difference Day to efforts with local youth like the Longley School Mentoring program.

Volunteering “is a way for me to connect with the community that I live in,” Miller-Hendry says. “Bates is lucky enough to have a wonderful program through the Harward Center that is committed to working with the community partners to really benefit both the students and the residents of Lewiston.”

Miller-Hendry coordinates the Bates volunteer program at Blake Street Towers, a public housing complex for residents who are elderly or disabled. Adelman works with the Hillview Afterschool Program, a Bates-run program at the Hillview Apartments community housing facility that provides homework help, games and activities for children.

Chiu facilitates Bates’ involvement with Lewiston Adult Education through the Lewiston Adult Learning Center and the College Transition Program, while Fischer works with the Longley School mentoring program. Gilligan coordinates the Montello School Reading Club and the America Reads and America Counts programs for Lewiston children.

Pennucci works with the Trinity Jubilee Center, recruiting Bates students to volunteer in the soup kitchen. Saunders coordinates group volunteer programs for Bates clubs and teams looking to make a difference in our communities.

“I strongly believe that what is important is not to force students to do community service, but instead make it clear that community service is not one specific thing,” Miller-Hendry says. “There are so many opportunities, from mentoring children to building houses to playing bingo with the elderly. Our goal as Student Volunteer Fellows is to make these opportunities as easy as possible for students.”

The eighth annual Clean Sweep, the Bates College “garage sale” of appliances, furnishings, electronics and other goods donated by departing students, raised nearly $12,000 in proceeds that will be divided among 14 local nonprofit organizations.

A community tradition, the June 14 sale drew droves of eager bargain-hunters to the college’s Underhill Arena, on Russell Street.

Bates is one of a number of colleges and universities nationwide that benefit both local nonprofit organizations and the environment by selling useful possessions donated by students as they head out at the end of the academic year.

The sale both keeps unwanted possessions out of the waste stream and raises money for the organizations. Nonprofits supply volunteers to help staff the event, and in return receive a share of the proceeds proportionate to the amount of time volunteered.

“More than 115 volunteers from the nonprofits put in a total of about 1,000 hours collecting, sorting, cleaning, organizing, pricing and selling an arena full of items that would have otherwise gone to waste,” says Julie Rosenbach, the college’s environmental coordinator.

“It made a difference,” she says. “I estimate that we sold approximately 85 percent of the items collected,” with the participating nonprofits and Bates employees taking their pick from the remainder. “In the end, less than 1 percent of everything we collected went into the trash.”

Items donated by Bates students and the community included appliances, furniture, sporting goods, housewares and electronics, books, toys, clothes and shoes.

The beneficiaries of the June 14 event were: Caleb Community Garden; Common Ties; First Universalist Church; Justice, Ecology and Democracy Collective; Life Center; Literacy Volunteers; Lots to Gardens; Maine Fair Trade Campaign; Maine People’s Alliance; Our Lady of the Rosary; Sandcastle Preschool; Share Center; Somali Bantu Community Association; and TriCounty Mental Health Services.

This year’s sale raised $11,897. Last year, 18 local school and nonprofit organizations divided $17,648 in proceeds. The total for 2006 was around $10,000.

– Office of Communications and Media Relations