Public Service Network programs

A Stitch in Time uses knitting to help fulfill community needs of warm clothing and caring outreach through three unique branches. The Outbound Branch aims to empower women in local shelters by teaching them how to knit. The Inbound program strives to teach and foster knitting among undergraduates on campus so that items knitted can be donated. The Inbound-Outbound Connection serves as an intermediary between these two programs.

The purpose of this chapter is to motivate college students nationwide to become actively involved in immigration reform. It focuses in part on providing immigrant students equal educational opportunities by means of lobbying, educating the public, and raising awareness within campus communities and throughout the nation. It is our hope that the Act on a Dream club will grant thousands of hardworking students access to higher education and eventual citizenship while promoting political activism among the nation’s youth.

Adelante! aims to foster personal development of high school freshmen girls, motivating them to set high goals and helping them to build the academic skills and virtues of character that they will need to excel in their academic, social, and professional lives. Working with students from North Cambridge Catholic High School, participants of Adelante! form friendships with the girls through one-on-one tutoring. Academic growth extends beyond homework help through skill-building projects in reading, writing, and math.

Named for the first Black woman to graduate from Radcliffe College, the Alberta V. Scott (AVS) Leadership Academy gives participating 9th, 10th and 11th grade girls the opportunity to cultivate leadership skills and individual creativity through semester-long projects. Each girl, or scholar, is assigned a mentor, and mentors and scholars participate in weekly discussions on topics ranging from maintaining physical and emotional health to setting and achieving goals.

The Beta Buddies mentoring program is the community service part of the College Diabetes Network, a student organization that works for and with type I diabetic college students and students interested in type-I diabetes. The program pairs college undergrads who have type-I diabetes with children and teens with type-I diabetes for an informal mentoring relationship. Beta Buddies creates an opportunity to build a friendship that may include discussion of type-I diabetes (but doesn’t have to) as well as more traditional mentoring responsibilities and general fun times.

Cambridge Microfinance Initiative is the first student group at Harvard solely dedicated toward helping local aspiring small-business owners achieve their goals. We provide public service in helping clients secure microfinance loans through our partnership with Accion USA. Our clients receive one-on-one consultation and personalized business advice from our student volunteers.

CityStep is a unique organization run entirely by undergraduates that introduces public school youth to the performing arts as an outlet for creative self-expression, a tool for building self-esteem, and a means to mutual understanding. The program is one of the largest student organizations on Harvard’s campus: approximately 75 undergraduates work together to serve over 100 Cambridge public school children annually.

College Matters (CM) is a student-run nonprofit that helps disadvantaged high school students apply to college. Having published a book on the application process in 2004, CM has provided high school students with valuable advice and support through seminar presentations both locally and across the country. In addition, CM runs a national scholarship competition that annually receives 15,000 applications from graduating high school seniors.

As the Harvard Crimson’s community service program, Crimson in the Community combines journalism with public service. Volunteers work with local high school students from around Boston at schools with new or under-funded journalism programs. Activities include brainstorming stories, editing pieces, and talking with students about basic rules of design and writing. The program also extends into the summer, when the Crimson invites a small group of high school students from around Boston to participate in a week-long journalism workshop.

The purpose of Cultural Agents at Harvard College is to activate art as a social resource by cultivating actions and thought within the undergraduate student body that aim to make measurable contributions to the education and development of local, national, and international communities.

FIMRC-Harvard is dedicated to improve the lives of children around the world primarily through health education and medical supply distribution. Each year, groups of volunteers travel during intercession, spring break, and the summer to international clinic sites to help in the local effort of disseminating invaluable information to village residents. On campus, FIMRC members seek to broaden awareness on international health concerns and fundraise to provide medical supplies.

In the spring, the Harvard College Fed Challenge coaches an economics team from the Prospect Hill Academy, http://www.prospecthillacademy.org/, a high school in Central Square, Cambridge. Twice per week from January to April, tutors work with the students to help them prepare for the high school economics competition at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Tutors have the opportunity to design and teach lesson plans, run macroeconomic simulations, and work with students in small groups. No experience necessary in tutoring, and basic high school economics knowledge is adequate.

The Harvard College Global Health and AIDS Coalition (HCGHAC) believes that health should be a fundamental human right. Towards this end, HCGHAC strives to challenge and expand the role of both the university and individual students in addressing global health and development needs. Through collaboration with various agents both within and outside of Harvard, HCGHAC aims to: -Engage students in a growing movement for global health through education and awareness activities -Effect policy change through advocacy and activism, both on and off campus

Founded in 2005, the Harvard College Korean Adoptee Mentorship Program (HCKAMP) is an organization that aims to expose internationally adopted Korean children from the Cambridge and Boston area to Korean culture and heritage. Each child, or “mentee,” is matched with a Harvard undergraduate “mentor” at the beginning of the school year, whom he/she meets with every month throughout the year, while there are also all-HKAMP meetings every month, in which we run group activities. Currently, there are more than 25 children and 25 mentors involved in the program.

Understanding global goings-on is vital for today’s students if they want to be responsible citizens. The Harvard Program for International Education (HPIE) is committed to bringing quality lessons with an international focus into Boston public high school classrooms. Volunteers create individualized lesson plans and teach once per week on topics as varied as human rights, immigration, nation-building, and the environment.

Harvard STAGE (Student Theater Advancing Growth and Empowerment) is a theater and public service organization, providing a weekly theater program for youth in the Greater Boston community. Throughout the school year STAGE members work with middle and elementary school children in under-funded Boston schools who would otherwise have little or no exposure to the performing arts. STAGE teaches its students the basics of theatrical performance, from improv to character development, ultimately helping students write and perform their own show which is showcased at Harvard at the end of the year.

The Harvard-Longwood Connection was founded as an organization to serve as a bridge between Harvard students on campus and the major hospitals of the Longwood Medical Area in Boston. Our partners are: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital-Boston, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Since 2006, the Harvard-Longwood Connection has provided information access, resources, and guidance for Harvard students on campus in order to facilitate the process of becoming a hospital volunteer.

For patients going through a long rehabilitation after an illness or injury, the support of an extra friend can really make a difference. Helping Hand and Heart (HHH) was created with the vision of bringing the compassionate face of healthcare to the bedside. HHH currently serves the Boston Medical Center (BMC) rehabilitation ward, home to a subset of patients who are particularly vulnerable to the novelty, loneliness, and trauma of medical care due to the sudden and debilitating nature of their injuries.

Anyone can make time to give back to the community, and the House and Neighborhood Development Program (HAND) helps ensure that Harvard students have the opportunity. HAND is dedicated to involving Harvard students in public service projects in the Cambridge and Greater Boston Community. Inspired by the principle of neighborhood and motivated by the desire to be good neighbors, HAND volunteers work as partners with members of the community, in the Cambridge public schools, and in a wide range of other community service programs, to enrich and improve the city both call home.

The Kidney Disease Screening and Awareness Program (KDSAP) provides free screenings and community-based health education to underserved Asian American, African American, and Hispanic communities in Greater Boston. These groups are at increased risk for end-stage renal disease, in part due to language barriers and lack of medical attention. Every month, KDSAP volunteers participate in a health screening led by one of Boston’s leading nephrologists, held at our permanent facility in Chinatown or a mobile unit.

REACH (Recreational Experience and Arts Creativity with Harvard) is a yearlong, student-run mentoring program for children with special needs. Children are ages 5-13 from the greater Boston area and present with cases of physical handicaps, developmental disabilities, and/or emotional/behavioral needs. REACH seeks to provide an encouraging, stimulating, friendly, and safe environment through building solid one-to-one relationships within a group setting. Each child is paired with a Harvard student and participates with them in gym, theater, and art activities.

Unite for Sight volunteers provide the medically underserved in the Greater Boston area with a variety of resources including: free preliminary vision screenings for children and adults in soup kitchens, homeless shelters, schools and libraries, enrollment in insurance and free health coverage programs (Children’s Health Insurance Program, Academy of Optometry’s VisionUSA, Sight for Students, Medicare, Medicaid, VA Insurance), general health education programs to reduce health disparities (including HIV/AIDS and immunizations), vision education programs, and support for those community mem

The William Monroe Trotter Scholars Program (WMTSP) aims to provide the youth of Mattapan with a well-rounded curriculum in personal finance, cultural history, and health. WMTSP hopes to provide our young scholars with a meaningful, engaging, and inspirational experience through personal relationships with their mentors at Harvard.