Sophomores reflect on the community service day, which occurred on Oct 22. In the picture above, various sophomores enjoy their day while cleaning up the beach at Golden Gate Parks Conservatory at Mori Point. Photo courtesy of Angela Birts.

Kaitlyn Tom | Staff Reporter

The sophomore class had a community service day where different advocacies performed a variety of tasks at different locations on Oct 22. Students volunteered at Taft Elementary School with Reading Partners, the Boys and Girls Club and Bell Haven, the Menlo Park Club House, InnVision Shelter Network’s Opportunity Center, Golden Gate Parks Conservatory at Mori Point, St. Anthony’s in Menlo Park, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, and the Homeless Garden Project.

Students helped maintain the gardens at the Homeless Garden Project, shown above. Photo courtesy of Angela Birts.

At Taft Elementary School, Brentwood, and the Menlo Park Club House, students interacted with at-risk youth and read to them to promote literacy. The group that went to Brentwood also visited the Boys and Girls Club and helped out with organizing donations and site cleanup. At the Opportunity Center and St. Anthony’s, students served the homeless and connected with them during a lunch service. Students sorted through food that donated to the families who had children that are currently being treated at Lucile Packard. At the Golden Gate Parks Conservatory at Mori Point, students went nearby the ocean to prevent invasive species from taking over the native plants and to improve the environment. At the Homeless Garden Project, students helped gardeners tend the plant that would be donated to homeless people.

Sophomore RD Babiera pulls out an invasive weed at the Golden Gate Parks Conservatory at Mori Point. Photo courtesy of Angela Birts.

Overall, students thought that a required community service day was a good idea. “I think it’s necessary that everyone is aware of the issues that occur around us,” sophomore Jojo Bachechi-Clark said. “I feel like a lot of people would not do community service if they had a choice.” Sophomore Rachel Howard agrees. “A lot of times we can get stuck in the ‘Menlo bubble’ and all the craziness with that and not think about the broader community.”

For this particular community service day, sophomore advocacies picked where they wanted to go, prompting some mixed reviews. “I like that different people went to different places because it provided a variety of activities for a variety of interests, but I don’t like that we had to choose as a whole advocacy,” Howard said. Sophomore Rishi Varma agrees. “I think [they should have] let people put down individual preferences and then form the groups from there,” Varma said. Sophomore Natalia Cordon wanted the selection process to be different so that students could pursue the service opportunity they had most interest in. “I think we should individually choose where we want to go because it provides more passion in the service we are doing,” Cordon said. Even so, students left the day with a positive mindset. “I didn’t actually go where I wanted to but I ended up thinking it was pretty cool,” Varma said.

Regardless of which community service opportunity students completed, the sophomores more or less enjoyed the activities they completed. “I really enjoyed reading to and playing with the kindergarteners at Brentwood,” Howard said, “It makes it really special to actually interact with the people you are helping and see the impact you are making on their lives even if it is for a short while.” Varma, whose advocacy went nearby the beach to help clean up the environment, enjoyed the work that he did that day. “The highlight of my day was when we actually saw one of the frogs in the pond that we were saving […] because it started to put things in perspective,” Varma said.

Students thought that the different trips provided an array of perspectives. Although some students were unsatisfied with how the community service opportunities were chosen, the majority of the students enjoyed the chance to make a difference at their assigned location.