USG launches 3C initiative

The USG Community Service Committee is revamping community service on campus with a new Campus Community Challenge, or 3C, initiative. The project, which was launched on Nov. 1, has set the ambitious goal of 30,000 hours of service logged by students between now and May 2012.

“The goal of 3C is to encourage a spirit of service among students across the Princeton campus,” CSC vice chair Mona Gossmann ’12 said. “We are trying to make community service a greater part of the daily life of everyone on campus.”

Gossmann is also a former photographer for The Daily Princetonian.

This new initiative marks a shift in the CSC’s philosophy toward community service. Instead of running its own service events alongside those offered by the Pace Center for Civic Engagement and other service-oriented campus groups, the CSC will now focus on simply supporting the efforts of other groups and individuals through the 3C initiative.

The CSC hopes that students will go the USG’s new 3C website to review the guidelines for what types of activities can count for service hours and to log the hours they have completed. Students will be rewarded with “thank-you”s like t-shirts and wristbands once they reach certain personal milestones.

“The purpose of the ‘thank-you’s is not to serve as a direct incentive to do more service — they are not prizes to be won,” CSC Chair Alex Gecker ’12 said. “Rather, we’re looking for people to have something that says ‘I serve, and I’m proud of it.’ ”

Gecker explained that, ultimately, she hopes that these signals of commitment to service will be a widespread part of campus.

“We want the Princeton identity to be more strongly grounded in community service,” she said.

This new vision for community service on campus was created by Gecker, CSC campus outreach coordinator Austin Hollimon ’12 and USG vice president Catherine Ettman ’13, along with staff and student leaders at the Pace Center and other groups.

“This initiative would be not be nearly as innovative without [Hollimon],” Gecker said. “Austin got me to think way outside the box — he said, ‘Look, our motto says we serve, but we all know that we’re not doing as much as we could, given how fortunate we are here. But students are doing their thing; they’re in dance groups, they’re in academic clubs, they’re on sports teams. Why shouldn’t we be able to find a way to help people do what they already love doing — but with an element of service?’ ”

Hollimon’s idea was to broaden the scope of service to include not just traditional project-based activities, but also activities for students whose passion isn’t strictly community service.

“Maybe we help an a cappella group perform for a local retirement home,” Gecker said. “Or maybe we encourage some chess wizards to teach their skills to middle-schoolers. Whatever it is people love to do, we want to encourage them to share it with the folks who make up the communities around us.”

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The new 3C website directs such non-service-oriented groups interested in one-time service opportunities to Pace Partners programs that offer such opportunities.

Hollimon declined to comment, but his fellow coordinators said that he drew inspiration for his idea from a successful community service program offered at The George Washington University. Last year, GW’s Office of Community Service encouraged students to log their hours of individual service activities after First Lady Michelle Obama challenged the campus to perform over 100,000 hours of community service. The Office exceeded its goal — and, in return, the First Lady spoke at their Commencement. “We think [30,000 hours] is a reasonable target, but not an easy one,” Gecker said. “We strongly believe that the student population can work together to make this happen.”