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After more than a decade of summertime service to the metropolitan Boston community, the First Year Student Outreach Program remains one of the campus' premier organized volunteer events, joining the working hands of freshmen, international and transfer students and upperclassmen alike.
Jessica Haskell, Program Manager of the Boston University Community Service Center, said the only way to describe the program is to use the annual event's single, simple slogan - FYSOP: 15 Years of Service.
"Over 13,124 hours of service were fulfilled in three days with an economic impact on the Boston community of over $90,000," she said.
FYSOP 15 ran from Aug. 30 to Sept. 3 and featured the cooperation of more than 560 volunteers.
After completing an application process promoted mostly during Summer Orientation, 432 "first-years" were selected to participate in a city-wide collective volunteer effort targeting eight social urban problems - hunger, homelessness and housing, environment, children, disabilities, elderly, gender focus and HIV/AIDS.
The students moved onto campus for the first time Aug. 30 and immediately began reviewing a trove of information regarding their assigned issue areas.
Sixteen FYSOP coordinators, chosen in May to work part-time and full-time over the course of the summer to prepare, bore the responsibility of creating 70- to 90-page Education Day packets designed to familiarize students upon their campus arrival and complement the sit-in Education Day proposed for Tuesday.
Inspirational speaker Mykee Fowlin opened Tuesday's itinerary of information sessions with a series of skits depicting personal conflict within each of the eight issue areas.
Education Day featured about three speakers on each issue area ranging from a quadriplegic Northeastern University student who welcomed questions on disabilities to a transsexual who discussed domestic abuse with the students in Gender Focus.
The national AIDS quilt returned to Boston University for its first appearance in 10 years and was displayed throughout the day in the George Sherman Union to recognize a BU administrator who died from complications from AIDS.
Wednesday night marked the halfway point of the week of service and featured a keynote address from Wendy Kopp - founder of the national pro-education movement Teach for America.
Kopp spoke for two hours on the program she established more 10 years ago to explore and ultimately lessen the disparities between the educations of different socioeconomic groups around the country.
"The primary salient lesson I've learned from my experience with Teach for America is that children have a common capacity for success but are often challenged by their socioeconomic standing," Kopp said. "It is essential that we localize the most promising future leaders in America to these sites if we are ever to resolve this problem."
Kopp noted that, on average, nine-year-olds in the program were three to four grades behind those of the same age in high-income regions.
"Students in the Teach for America program are also currently seven times less likely to graduate from college than students from these high-income communities," Kopp said.
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday comprised the three full days of service that the FYSOP mission embodies. Coordinators were responsible for arranging a total of 49 worksites among their individual issue areas.
"We decided to send the first-years to a variety of sites including the Massachusetts Eating Disorder Association, Rosie's Place and Second Step," said Gender Focus Coordinator Kimberly Parr.
Hunger Coordinator Mike D'Emic found Fair Foods of Dorchester - a food salvage and distribution program - to be a successful experience for both students and the impoverished.
"Meeting Nancy Jamison - the head of Fair Foods - has been a life-changing experience for many people, so I wanted my volunteers to get the chance to work with her," D'Emic said.
The event closed last Friday night with the display of a handmade quilt made from patches depicting worksites visited throughout the week. Participants said it displayed the lifetime of memories for its staff, participants and benefactors.
"It takes a lot of love and enthusiasm for this program to be successful," Haskell explained. "This week has been a learning experience built with excellent communication and trust among the staff based on what each contributor believes is best for the program."
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