College day of service helps beautify Phoenix park

More than 80 students, staff and faculty participated in the College’s inaugural spring semester day of service at Margaret T. Hance Park Saturday. Volunteers cleaned the park's playground, cleaned and painted light poles, sifted leaves and debris from the sand volleyball court and removed dozens of bags of leaves from the community gardens.

“We want to show the ASU campus is part of the Phoenix downtown community,” says Dale Larson, director of community relations for the College of Public Service and Community Solutions. “We take classes here, we work here, we park here, we go to restaurants here, but in many instances outside of classes and college, we really don’t have the opportunity to become part of the community in an actual day of service.”

The event featured students from all four schools in the College: Community Resources and Development, Criminology and Criminal Justice, Public Affairs, and Social Work as well as volunteers from the W.P. Carey School of Business.  

The College also sponsors a day of service in the fall at the Maricopa County Human Services campus that serves hundreds of people who are homeless or are in need of help. Last fall about 150 students, faculty and staff cleaned, painted, sorted donations and performed work in the campus garden.

Saturday's day of service featured a tree planting that will be part of the annual event.

Social Work graduate student Sharon Weiss was happy to donate her time and muscle raking and picking up leaves at Margaret T. Hance Park.

“I’m a social work student,” says Weiss. “And this is my way of giving back to the community and just me fulfilling what I’m going to do at the end of the day.”