Living to Serve

Except for the occasional phone call or tapping on the keyboard, it's quiet in the Center for Community Engagement office. But it's the type of quiet that means something's brewing. With a new office location in Stratford Heights and student housing opportunities available, the Center for Community Engagement, or CCE, is gearing up to expand its services to University of Cincinnati students interested in volunteering and living with other service-oriented people.

Two floors of suite-style dorm rooms are located above the CCE office in Stratford Heights and were set aside as housing for students interested in community service. Emily Dietrich, an arts education graduate student, is a community assistant to the students who live in the house. "This year we have a handful of students who are interested in CCE's purpose," Dietrich said.

According to Dietrich, the center hopes more service-oriented students interested in CCE and volunteering will move in for next fall, as they will have more time this year to recruit more students to the center.

Elizabeth Metz, CCE program coordinator, said recruiting for students to live in the house happened during the summer and a little bit during new student orientation. The number of service-oriented students interested in living in the house is small, but growing.

"Once the house starts getting it's footing, trying things out, finding their identity, that'll make promoting it for next year easier," Metz said.

The students who are interested in volunteering will have the support of the center, but "any programming for the students that are living in the house, we're hoping will come from the students," said Metz.

According to Ha-Vi Tran, a graduate student in architecture who has worked at the center since last fall, the ideal of the center is to organize projects and then hand off the events to the students for them to take over.

The house is like most other Stratford Heights' houses, with a big screen TV and a common kitchen area. However, the Center for Community Engagement house also has a large conference room students can utilize for studying and group projects.

CCE helps organize Relay for Life, Habitat for Humanity projects around the surrounding neighborhoods and tutoring and mentoring for students in Cincinnati Public Schools, Tran said.

The next big event for the center is Into the Streets, a one-day community service effort, according to Metz. On Saturday, Oct. 6, students can have breakfast at the center at 8:30 a.m. and sign up for a variety of projects for the day, such as cleaning up litter and planting. The students will then go to different sites within walking distance into the community. Metz hopes the students who get involved with Into the Streets will see what the center has to offer, and sign up for more events in the future.

CCE also organizes Habitat for Humanity every Saturday at a house in Avondale near the Cincinnati Zoo. Metz advises students who are interested to sign up soon because spots are filling up fast.

CCE is also recruiting tutors for students at Taft Elementary.

For more information on CCE events and community service opportunities, as well as housing opportunities, visit their Web site at http://www.uc.edu/cce.