Today’s SU Serve wrapped up our Greek Week here at Susquehanna University, and was my first time participating in a greek event as an official brother of Alpha Phi Omega. The purpose of SU Serve is to send students out into the surrounding communities of our campus to interact with locals while assisting with various non-profit organizations, like Mostly Mutts or the Mifflinburg Buggy Museum. My friend Nikki and I were assigned to help out at the Freeburg Borough Community Center. Our group included about 10, with sisters from Zeta Tau Alpha, brothers from Phi Mu Alpha, plus Nikki and I from Alpha Phi Omega.
At the Community Center, which was originally a school that first opened in 1895, and closed in 1997, we helped outside with some landscaping projects. Nikki and I joined Sophia from ZTA to spread mulch around trees, and then we joined the others to paint some metal frames. The other group helped the director of the community center to dig a new butterfly garden near the playground. The director explained to us that their town’s population is unevenly distributed with a majority of senior citizens and young children, who are also the main beneficiaries of the community center. This means that, when maintenance needs to be done, there aren’t many young adults or middle-aged persons who are around, or care enough, to volunteer.
We finished all that they had hoped we’d be able to help out with for the afternoon a little earlier before the bus was scheduled to take us back to SU, so the director gave us a tour of the building, including the town’s museum on the second floor. They have a pretty extensive collection of artifacts from the cigar and clothing factories that once operated in Freeburg, along with newspapers from the 1800s, groceries from the general store, and hundreds of photos. The director was really excited to share their town history with us, and this really made our group’s experience more meaningful. If you ever drive through Freeburg, it’s worth making a stop to talk to Terry and ask him to show you around the museum, I’m sure he’d be welcome to more visitors.