Doing Good by Giving Back
On a day for reflection, giving back and supporting local communities, nearly 300 Montclair State University students volunteered September 10 – gardening, planting, painting, cleaning, assisting adults with disabilities and “adopting” grandparents – to commemorate the National Day of Service and Remembrance.
The University’s Center for Community Engagement sponsored the events to allow students to serve in a meaningful way, to honor first responders and those who died, rekindling a spirit of unity that arose in America in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Students volunteered both on and off campus – from the Montclair YMCA and the Boys & Girls Clubs in Clifton to Pillar Care for adults with cerebral palsy in Livingston and adopting grandparents at Canterbury Village in West Orange.
Katarina Rodriguez, a junior Business major who helped stain the fence at the Montclair YMCA, says volunteering on the Day of Service “allowed me to pay remembrance towards the tragedy of 9/11 in an intentional way.”