Houses Cultivate Community Spirit Through Service

Sietse K. Goffard ’15 started off his Saturday by doing laundry, but not his own—he was one of 20 students either living in or assigned to Currier House helping at the local Harvard Square Homeless Shelter, washing linens, cleaning bathrooms, and tidying the kitchen.

“I couldn’t think of a better way to serve and to get to know new members of Currier House,” Goffard said.

Goffard’s Currier trip is one of twelve community service events organized by the College Events Board, in collaboration with the representatives from different Houses. The joint venture, called Harvard College Serves, is in its first year and hopes to introduce freshmen to the communities of their newly assigned Houses through public service initiatives.

Eliot House kicked off the initiative on Friday morning with a trip to Cradles to Crayons Giving Factory in Brighton, MA. That afternoon, Dunster House also paid a visit to the organization. Events in Currier House and Pforzheimer House followed on Saturday, and the other eight Houses will hold their events throughout March and April.

For Assistant Dean of Public Service Gene A. Corbin and College Events Board advisor Ken A. Parreno ’11, the series of events provides an opportunity to combine House spirit and public service. Parreno said that this combination of factors was crucial in the choice to hold these events soon after Housing Day.

“For incorporating public service with building a community at Harvard, this is a pretty good time,” Parreno said. “Freshmen are looking forward to the next three years, but they’re also looking outward and seeing what public service at Harvard can be like.”

These goals for the programming directly informed the intended size of the Harvard College Serves events.

“We want to make sure these events are big enough so you can get to meet people but not so big you lose the intimacy,” Parreno said.

Corbin said that each event will be able to accommodate approximately thirty students. But some houses faced challenges attracting freshmen: only six freshmen signed up for Eliot House’s event. Just one of those freshmen ended up attending the event on Friday morning.

Nadine R. Rubinstein ’13, a public service representative in Eliot House, attributed the low turnout to the scheduling of Eliot’s event.

“We got the 9:30 a.m. Friday slot, so no freshmen wanted to come,” Rubinstein said. “Some of the other houses have gotten 25 sign-ups.”

But Parreno said that he hopes the program will inspire the students to continue engaging in the community.

“We really hope that freshmen or upperclassmen or whoever participates sees this as a beginning to get involved in public service,” Parreno said.

—Staff writer Petey E. Menz can be reached at menz@college.harvard.edu