Service from the Corps

	Top: Austin Bernier and Joanell Hernandez hang Trash and Recycle signs on campus. Middle and Bottom: Angel and Luis Delcid organize items at the SWAP Shop.

Answering the call for a day of service on Martin Luther King Day this year, groups of students from the Grafton Job Corps fanned out across the region to help several community programs, including the Growing Green effort at UMass Chan Medical School. 

Corps students posted new “Trash” or “Recycle” signs around campus to encourage more participation in the effort to limit the waste stream flowing off campus.

The students also worked for several hours in the SWAP Shop (room S3-209) sorting and organizing the myriad items at the shop, which is a campus program to foster the reuse of materials.

“We appreciate the help of these enthusiastic students,” said Suzanne Wood, sustainability and energy manager at UMass Chan. “The SWAP Shop is active and can get a little cluttered, so their efforts were really great.”

Any student, faculty or staff member on campus is encouraged to bring useful work-related items to the SWAP Shop, and take items they can use. (Home goods are not accepted.)

“This was an important experience to me because this was a hospital I have gone to for care since my childhood, so in a way, this was me giving back to my community,” Angel Delcid said after her experience on MLK Day. “While it was great to receive the appreciation from the staff of UMass Chan Medical School, it was more so a great feeling to think less of myself and devote my time to others.”

In addition to UMass Chan, on MLK Day the Grafton Job Corps students worked at Grafton Food Bank, Grafton Lions Club, the Mustard Seed, Abbey’s House and Girls Inc.