Where Am I? At the Friendship Center, That's Where

Here are the nine students from the Where Am I program who helped out on Saturday.

We were pleased on Saturday, Sept. 2, to host a group of Williams College students with the Where Am I? local community orientation and service program.

Most were first-year students, with two sophomores leading the group. They came from such diverse places as Queens, N.Y.; Boston; Los Angeles; and Ethiopia.

After a hearing a brief description of what we do, the students took on a wide array of tasks. NBIAI Board of Directors members Sheila Bounds, who is volunteer coordinator; Fran Berasi; and Mark Rondeau each had tasks for the students.

 Here are the students working on repackaging cat and dog food. The pet food comes from the Berkshire Humane Society and from private donations.

The students bagged cat and dog food, and a group went out to Stop & Shop and bought more with money they were given; they repackaged diapers; one students did data entry; they put return stickers and stamps on envelopes for our upcoming letter fund-raising campaign; one student made copies of our fund-raising letter and fact sheet. To top it all off before they left, the students made the weekend cleaning the Friendship Center much easier by thoroughly sweeping the floor.

Though we have had the Where Am I? program visit in the past, I have a hard time remembering the name, at times calling it You Are Here! or Where Are We? At any rate, on a long walk on Monday in Williamstown, I discovered from a sign along Main Street that they are involved in the habitat restoration project near the old Spruces site. In fact, last week I saw a group of young people working there, and they were probably the same students we saw on Saturday. (See photos below).

Working with local students is one of the many enjoyable things about this work.

  Students in the foreground are re-packaging pet food while the students in the back are re-packaging diapers. We get our diapers from the Berkshire Diaper Project.

 One of the Williams students did data entry for us, entering information about our volunteers onto a spreadsheet. That's volunteer coordinator Sheila in the background updating the volunteer board.

Here's the habitat restoration project in Williamstown that the Where Am I? Williams students also worked on.