Volunteers to enhance schools

The 17th Annual New York Cares Day on Saturday, October 18 is expected to attract more than 8,000 volunteers to 100 public schools across the five boroughs. Registration opened on Monday, July 14 for the city’s largest hands-on community service event.
“Citywide days of service are effective because a lot of people, with their busy schedules, know that at least they can give back in one day. If you do it all in one day, the impact is much more significant,” said Melissa Bieri, Director of Annual Events at New York Cares. “A lot of people have it on their calendar. They find the work so fulfilling that they come back year after year.”
Volunteer teams will throng to the schools from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in order to work on a variety of projects, such as re-organizing libraries, planting flowers, painting classrooms and fences, creating colorful murals, organizing storage areas and more.
Bieri, who has worked with New York Cares for 9 years, can recall many success stories.
“Since the program is on Saturday, volunteers don’t get to see the students’ reactions on Monday. Students notice the details because they [go to school] every day,” said Bieri. “We had one child who was so overwhelmed by how beautiful his school looked that he fake-fainted!” The organization received a letter of thanks from the boy and his school.
Teachers also benefit from the work, Bieri added. “Teachers were saying, ‘I never had time to organize my storage closet, and now we have access to material that we didn’t before.’ ”
Some particularly creative projects include reading lofts, built out of two-by-fours, where a student could curl up with a book. The volunteers paint “tons of murals” by the end of the day, usually themed for the school or local community.
Like a walk-a-thon, participants have the option of fundraising in honor of the time they spend volunteering or paying a $5 donation. Proceeds support future events and New York Cares’ year-round volunteer programs, which include yoga classes for homeless children, SAT tutoring and dog walking. New York Cares mobilizes 40,000 people a year to do 1,000 volunteer projects a month.
About 400 of the approximately 8,000 annually recruited volunteers are students themselves. The majority of volunteers are adults from civic and corporate teams, although the event is open to volunteers aged 12 and up (participants under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian).
New York Cares Day is run by New York Cares in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. To view a list of schools and other information or to register, visit newyorkcaresday.org.