Team Clean Up’s Volunteer Service Report

Over the course of our EACAP project, we have made great progress in the volunteer work we have done with the City of Reading and the volunteer organizations of VOiCEup Berks and Youth Volunteer Corps, South of Penn Task Force, and Reading Beautification. We participated in a clean up event with several of the organizations to help make an impact on the problems of litter and pollution in the City of Reading. Our issue that we focused on through our volunteer service was litter and the methods that organizations use to strengthen the community in Reading. In order to better understand our organizations, their purpose, and the actions they take in Reading, we conducted interviews with representatives of each organization. In our interviews, we asked about what types of events they hold to help clean up the city and help build and strengthen the community in Reading as well as help people learn skills such as how to be financially stable and leadership. We also asked about the greatest obstacles that these organizations face and how difficult it is to gather volunteers for the events they hold.

Through our interviews, we found that the organizations we worked with had similar goals to each other and have similar events to accomplish their goals. Some of the common goals the organizations hold are to clean up the City of Reading of litter and trash and to help strengthen Reading’s community as well as helping individual people learn skills through events and service that will help them become a better community member. Some of the common difficulties that they shared were the difficulty of reaching out to volunteers and the community and advertising the organization and events they hold. Some of the common methods of advertising were through Facebook and by word of mouth. Another common issue that faced these organizations were how the community of Reading receives them and working to gain the trust of the community.

The important people that helped us along with our project was Laura Cordero from the City of Reading Public Works who helped us organize and get in touch with our organizations for our volunteer work, Tony Veloz from the South of Penn Task Force who we interviewed and he organized the clean up event for the South Penn that we participated in, Christi Terefenko from VOiCEup Berks and the Youth Volunteer Corps who had a large role in organizing the Global Youth Service Day clean up event in City Park, and Steven Harrity who worked with Reading Beautification for several years and also had an important role in organizing the Great American Clean Up all around the City of Reading. These individuals helped us along with gathering information about their organizations and helping us volunteer for the organization to clean up the litter and trash that was polluting the streets of Reading.

The important events that we participated in with these organizations were clean up events hosted by South of Penn, VOiCEup Berks, and Reading Beautification. With South of Penn, we participated in a cleanup event on Bingaman street in the City of Reading where we collected around 2 large trash bags of litter that was on the street while we worked along side several other volunteers who helped clean up. We participated in VOiCEup Berks and Youth Volunteer Corps’ Global Youth Service Day to help clean up the park by doing mulching, weeding, planting flowers, and picking up litter and leaves in our area of the park near the Veterans’ memorials. We interviewed Steven Harrity about RBI and how it works to clean up Reading and how it organizes events and projects in Reading

To reflect on this project, we felt that it provided us with very valuable volunteering experiences that helped us build our leadership and organizational skills while teaching us about the organizations that work to help build communities and clean the environment. We learned about the details of innerworkings of the organizations and the biggest problems that they face with the community and the cities they help. We felt that our experiences with this project were enjoyable and important and that they have helped prepare us with important life skills. As a message to all youth and individuals alike, you should take advantage of the volunteering opportunities around you as organizations like South of Penn and others depend on new volunteers like you to help clean up the environment and help where ever they can. Volunteering will also help you build important life skills like leadership and communications skills as well as organizational skills, so it can’t hurt you to try.