The McKeen Center for the Common Good is discontinuing its annual Common Good Day (CGD), McKeen Center Director Sarah Seames announced in an email to the community on Wednesday. CGD will be replaced with a new program called Common Good Project Teams (CGPT). Each team will volunteer with a former CGD partner organization for a period extending beyond a single day. According to Seames, CGPT will better allow volunteers from the College to tackle projects on a more flexible time frame in order to best accommodate community partners’ organizational needs.

Seames explained that, since CGD’s inaugural year in 1998, volunteer opportunities to serve the community year-round have expanded dramatically. This has led to a changed conception of the Center’s mission.

“We understand the McKeen Center’s mission in more dynamic terms [than in the past], designing programs to deepen students’ community impact, the relationships they build in the community and the development of critical self-awareness in our pursuit of the common good,” Seames wrote.

The McKeen Center will accept its first project proposals this summer and begin work on the projects as soon as September. Community partners will be able to choose when the projects are finished, and each volunteer group will receive support from the Center.