Four hundred and eight Bowdoin students, 20 prospective students and 35 faculty, staff, alumni and family members participated in the College’s 16th annual Common Good Day last Saturday.
Participants worked on 50 community service projects around midcoast Maine, including coastal cleanup, trail work, painting and indoor cleaning, among others.
Registration was smoother this year than in the past, though the trips filled up just as quickly as ever.
“Groups take up the majority of the spots, and there are usually enough spots for individuals,” said Andrew Lardie, associate director for service and leadership at the McKeen Center for the Common Good.
For the past few years, Common Good Day and Explore Bowdoin—an overnight program for prospective students—have coincided, and this year 20 prospective students took part in the Bowdoin tradition.
“[Associate Dean of Admissions] Claudia Marroquin has been really good about informing prospies about the project possibilities and then matching them up,” said Lardie.
Feedback from Common Good Day participants has been largely positive. Eighty-six percent of participants found their experience either “very positive” or “positive.”
Tory Rusch ’15, a member of the softball team, worked on a project at a local Brunswick retirement home with her teammates. Saturday marked Rusch’s third time participating in Common Good Day.
“We all get together, have some team bonding and help out the community at the same time,” said Rusch.
The project entailed building a bocce court and painting doors and walls inside the retirement home.
“[It was especially rewarding] going to the retirement home and getting to interact with the residents that actually live there,” said Rusch. “We’d paint their doors and sit and chat—it was nice to get to see who you were helping.”
Simon Close ’17 also spoke highly of his Common Good Day experience. Close and five fellow residents of Quinby House went to the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust, where they created a pathway on a muddy area of a hiking trail.
“It was really cool to see the finished product of what our service had done, and it was a good workout too,” said Close. “It was great to see that we made a difference and helped out.”
Like Rusch, Close said he found his Common Good Day project to be rewarding.
“I’m really proud to be a Bowdoin student if this is something that Bowdoin presents itself as doing,” he said.
The McKeen Center hopes that Common Good Day will inspire students to make long-term service commitments, “either with the same organization they worked with on Common Good Day or something related or unrelated,” said Lardie.
“When we talk with students who are in some of our more specific programs, Alternative [Spring] Break for instance, many of their first experiences with community service were with Common Good Day, so we know that sometimes it is a gateway,” he said.