A team of enthusiastic volunteers dispersed throughout Bucks County today to help those in need. Bucks County Community College students, faculty, staff and alumni volunteered at over a dozen service sites in BCCC’s first annual Volunteer Bucks Day of Service, hosted with the help of United Way Bucks County.
There were service sites in every corner of Bucks County. In Upper Bucks, volunteers worked at Habitat for Humanity‘s construction site in Sellersville as well as their ReStore in Chalfont. Central Bucks hosted volunteers at A Woman’s Place, organizing clothing donations. Here in Lower Bucks, volunteers were cutting paper hearts with Adoption From The Heart, repairing trails at Tyler State Park, and preparing for Harvest Fair at Bristol Township’s Senior Center, just to name a few!
Bonnie Worth, director of BTSC, showed me around their center. “Our Harvest Fair is on October 26th and it takes a lot of preparation. Volunteers will be creating our scarecrow kits for children that want to assemble their own scarecrow at the fair,” she explained. They also had plenty of gardening and outdoor work ready for their volunteers.
Adoptions From The Heart is a non-profit adoption agency. Their Paper Heart Project runs through November, which is National Adoption Month. Dozens of volunteers helped them cut out purple paper hearts that will later be used to collect donations during November.
Tyler State Park was also a big site for volunteers, including BCCC’s own Matt Cipriano who was a driving force behind Volunteer Bucks. He and many BCCC athletes worked to repair a trail at the park to make it safer for those enjoying nature.
Matt was excited about how the day turned out. “We’ve wanted to do this for a long time and it’s great to have both our employees and students getting exposure to these agencies they may not have otherwise. We have a lot to build upon and we’re looking for an even bigger day next year,” he explained during a quick break from his manual labor.
A big thank you to all our participants for making the first Volunteer Bucks a success!
About the Contributor: Katie Pilot is the Marketing Assistant at UW Bucks. She is a senior at Villanova University with a major in Communications. Due to her passion for social justice, particularly the importance of education, she is excited to help get the word out about UWBucks’ great contributions to the county in hopes to get more people involved.