Students clean up Clifton

Students from the University of Cincinnati were spread throughout the Clifton/Corryville area Saturday, Oct. 6 as part of the UC Center for Community Engagement's Into the Streets event.

"It is a beginning of the year, one day event, where students band together in groups and do work in the community," said Kathy Dick, director of the UC Center for Community Engagement. "Particularly around beautification, cleanup and that kind of thing."

The UC Center for Community Engagement has held the Into the Streets event for several years. "It is an opportunity to have that one big day of service early in the year so students can get together and do service and get to know each other," Dick said.

There were more than 165 student volunteers in attendance at this year's event, program coordinator Elizabeth Metz said.

"This was the biggest [event] ever," Dick said.

Into the Streets is also a great way for students that are new to the university to become familiar with the neighborhood. "It's a way to give back to their community, as well as get to know their community," Dick said.

This year the event took a much different angle than years past. "It was a little different approach," Dick said. "It was a community pride approach, our own community, our own neighborhood."

Into the Streets has traditionally focused on 10 to 12 neighborhoods around the Cincinnati area. Students fanned out into the city and worked on a variety of projects. "We would actually bus them out of our community to the larger community," Dick said.

There is a larger sense of impact now that all the students remain close to the UC campus, according to Ha-vi Tran, a graduate assistant at the Center for Community Engagement.

According to many at the Center for Community Engagement, it was difficult to see a real impact on the communities using this approach.

"Before [the communities] were so spread out, it was hard to see the larger sense of good before," said Ha-vi Tran of the Center for Community Engagement.

The need to see a visible result in the community led to the Center for Community Engagement to keep students in the neighborhoods surrounding the university's main campus.

"We just decided this year, why not have the students walk out into the community?" Dick said.

The Center for Community Engagement held a community meeting that helped solidify partners for this year's Into the Streets event, according to Dick. "Why not build a bridge right here, build relationships here," Dick said.

A glitch with one sponsor left the UC Center for Community Engagement scrambling to find breakfast for almost 200 student volunteers at the last minute, according to Dick.

Lunch was provided by Clifton Heights Business Association, and came from Mac's Pizza Pub.

"We hope that every time we send students out into the community that they will have a connection," Dick said. "Today the community organizations talked [to students] about what they do, and the sense of pride [in community]."

Several community members were on-site during the event to show their support for the volunteers and the UC Center for Community Engagement. "There really are people here who care about what we do for the community," Dick said.

The Center for Community Engagement is part of UC Student Affairs and Services, and has been at the university for almost nine years. The office works to raise awareness on campus about volunteer opportunities.