VCU is launching an online calendar that will help students and other volunteers work with service groups to meet the critical needs of the Richmond community.
The Caring to Act calendar features community service projects that target issues such as homelessness, health and the environment. The online calendar is open to any volunteers from VCU, including students, staff, organizations, alumni and academic departments.
The Caring to Act calendar grew out of the 40 Acts of Caring program, in which VCU highlighted 40 examples of community engagement and involvement during its 40 anniversary celebration last year.
“We found out with the 40 Acts of Caring that there are a lot of great community engagement events going on.” Ron Brown, the community development coordinator for VCU’s Division of Community Engagement said. “Unfortunately, because the campus is so big, the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.”
Brown said the calendar is a communication tool across campus, among other purposes. “It is also a tool for us to better track how much involvement and volunteer hours we have for the year, and to hopefully bring more attention to VCU’s commitment to community engagement,” Brown said.
The Caring to Act calendar tries to connect service activities to academic events on campus.
“If someone were to have a speech about the economy’s role in losing houses, it would be nice to link that to an event on homelessness so that folks can learn about the issue, as well as get involved in the community,” Catherine Howard, vice provost of the division of community engagement said. “We’re trying to link education and service together.”
The Caring to Act calendar aims to help people see connections between related volunteer events so together, they might have more impact.
Green Unity for VCU is sponsoring Novemberfest, a harvest-themed celebration of local food, sustainable eating and community on Nov. 10 that is one of seven events already identified on the calendar. That event might partner with the student kickoff for the Year of the Environment.
“This new partnership has greatly expanded our expected audience and our budget,” said Amanda Schutt, a co-founder of Green Unity.
The Caring to Act calendar was created by VCU’s Council of Community Engagement, which is made up of campus representatives from academic departments and other key university support units. The council selects service projects to put on the calendar from submitted nomination forms.
In the spring, the council will call for nominations for events to be placed on the calendar for the next academic year.
Make a date to serve others
You can search VCU’s events calendar –
events.vcu.edu – for activities that are part of VCU’s Caring to Act initiative. In the next few weeks, the Caring to Act initiative plans to create a Facebook page to highlight upcoming events and explain how to get involved.