As a Freshman, there’s a lot of pressure to get involved in clubs and activities around campus. It seems like there’s always so much going on, that it’s impossible to balance doing what you want to do and other priorities like going to class or studying for exams. Rutgers is good at making you feel like you have to be doing something at all times, or else you’re physically taking the concept of time and dunking it into the trash can. A good way to get involved while helping out the New Brunswick/Piscataway community is RUPA’s annual Scarlet Day of Service Event, where 1000 Rutgers students can donate their time, not only to the community we live in, but others in the NJ/NY area.
Before the event day, you can select where you would like to volunteer. I chose the New Brunswick Free Public Library, where the work we’d be doing was mostly moving around furniture and organizing books. But there were around 20-30 different opportunities for students to give back, from cleaning up parks to assisting in festival preparations.
Once we arrived at check in at Denier Park, we were given breakfast and then told to check in again at our sites. There was a DJ, volunteer fair, and even a station to pack a lunch for children attending nearby elementary school. It was a beautiful Saturday morning, and even though it’s rare for me to be awake at 8 a.m. on a weekend, the shining sun and positive atmosphere made it bearable. After a few announcements from RUPA and Rutgers Student Affairs, we were sent off to our sites.
The New Brunswick Free Public Library is located on 60 Livingston Ave. Our group went through the standard awkward ice breaker and then headed inside to begin our work. It turned out that not many people were needed to organize books, something that I thought I’d be doing. Instead, I put on some gardening gloves, filled up my water bottle, and headed outside to pull weeds from the back lawn of the building. The area needed to be cleaned up so that it would look presentable for an upcoming Dia de Los Muertos festival that the library hosted. The sun was beating down and there was no AC, but I shared some laughs with new people as we all agreed that there were definitely tools for this job. Regardless, we got down and dirty to get the job done. With 4 of us covering the area, it didn’t really take long.
After we finished, we headed back in for lunch. I thought that it was a simple enough job, and that we’d get back on the bus and head home. However, one of the library’s event coordinators came in to talk to us for a bit before we headed out. I didn’t expect more than a short, “thank you for your service” spiel and a room full of smiles and collective chatter with the occasional “of course” or “you’re welcome”. However, we all were told how much the little tasks that we completed today added up in a monumental way. We were told how many kids in the surrounding area rely on this library to come to after school to do homework or be tutored. They come to the library to learn how to read, play on the computers, and make new friends. Part of why the library is so successful is because Rutgers students come back to teach these kids and motivate them to do well in school, encouragement that they may not get in school or at home. Although none of us could take credit for tutoring or teaching, there was a sense of pride of attending a school that gives back not just on an organized day, but every day, year round. Those are the things that I definitely wasn’t thinking about as I was weeding out grass in 90 degree weather.
We soon packed up our things and headed back towards the bus and thanked the librarians and other staff for allowing us to come in and help them out. We were met with double the gratitude and were waved off. It sounds corny to say that I left that day taking away more than I expected to, but it’s the truth. When people say that “it really is the little things,” this is part of what they mean. Life follows the Butterfly Effect, where every action opens up a series of outcomes which later then branch out even further. Upon the wings of a butterfly, I, who is merely a member of something that it so much bigger than myself, both began and continued an infinite amount of paths for the kids in the New Brunswick area to take. Someone else could have had a completely different experience, and that’s fine, too. But this one here, is mine.