From Oct. 24 through Oct. 30 Elizabethtown College will hold its tradition of Into The Streets. It is being organized by the Center for Community and Civic Engagement (CCCE). CCCE Program Coordinator Sharon Sherick said via Zoom, “It’s important for first-years to see the tradition and how Etown unites together for this event that matters so much to Etown, especially because service is so important to Etown.”
With the College’s motto being “Educate for Service” and Into The Streets typically being a day dedicated to service, it was necessary to find a way to make it work despite COVID-19. Typically students go off campus into the local community to do various projects, but that is not possible this year.
Sherick explained the College would be doing the projects on campus in small groups of four or less, or students have the option to sign up to do service remotely. Some of the project choices this year are making cards for various places and people, putting together craft kits for children and more. A few that are remote include recording a reading of a book for children, helping museums – such as deciphering ancient letters and Talent Show. “Anyone that has any talent, singing, dancing, reading poetry, anything, can film themselves doing their talent. Then it will be compiled and a link to the video will be sent out to nursing homes for the residents to view,” Sherick commented.
The CCCE is looking for donations of towels, sheets, t-shirts and plastic bags, which will be used in various service projects. For example t-shirts can be cut to make dog toys and later be donated to a shelter. Plastic bags are turned into yarn that is then woven together to make mats.
A lot of preparation has gone into preparing for this year’s Into The Streets. “Finding the projects was the first main hurdle. Then finding out the best way to handle the sign ups, and the time crunch was probably the biggest challenge,” Sherick said via Zoom.
Figuring out how to get the supplies clean for each project for the next group and how to distribute supplies to students to keep everyone safe was the main priority in the planning. It took a lot of time for CCCE to find projects that would provide meaningful experiences for all involved.
Sherick commented, “A positive of this is we were able to make connections with agencies they may have never heard about, giving them a more board of a scope other than just Lancaster County or Etown to work with, such as the Smithsonian.”
The format of Into The Streets this year also allows more flexibility as it lasts a week instead of only one day. Sherick said, “There’s no excuse this year if you want to do it because it can be when they have time, even if that’s 3:00am.”
The sign up is available and students can sign up for what they want to do as well as, the time to pick up the supplies for the chosen project, if they will be doing in-person service. The set up of the sign up is different this year due to needing to stagger the students getting supplies at one time, to avoid an area becoming too crowded as safety precautions.
Sherick said, “I’m looking forward to keeping the continuity, especially for seniors. There are so many things people are missing out on already. We talked and thought about skipping [Into The Streets], but we didn’t want to lose the Etown tradition of Into The Streets, even if it is different.”
