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What do a Chinese lion, size 17 shoes,
and a zucchini have in common?
They're all part of our A to Z guide to
Johns Hopkins volunteering.
By Maria Blackburn and Catherine
Pierre
Illustrations by
Dan Yaccarino
Forty years ago if we had wanted to present a round-up of
volunteering at Johns Hopkins, it would have been
something like "Our A to D Guide." Not that there wasn't
volunteerism on campus. Quite the contrary — there
was a dedicated group of people who tutored children,
helped the poor, and otherwise filled needs where they saw
them.
So why an A to Z guide now? These days, people aren't just
responding to problems, says Bill Tiefenwerth, director of
the Center for Social Concern. They're bringing a whole
range of new ideas to the table. Volunteers "take
something out of their cultural background or a special
ability to share it with others," he says.
The result is an astounding array of volunteer efforts
that range from cooking ethnic foods for women living in
shelters, to teaching ballet to city school students, to
clowning around at local children's hospitals.
April is National Volunteer Month. In recognition, we
present this sampling of good works taking place in and
around the Hopkins community.
A
is for About Face at
Aberdeen
They are kids on the brink — high school dropouts
with troubled backgrounds who are at risk of heading down
the wrong path. Free State Challenge Academy at Aberdeen
Proving Ground aims to help these teenagers redirect their
lives. The program guides them in getting their GEDs and
setting career goals while fostering self-esteem,
confidence, and discipline. "It's like a military boot
camp," explains Tykise Hairston, a graduate student at the
Hopkins School of
Nursing and U.S. Army captain who last year
volunteered with the National Guard as a youth mentor.
Free State, a 22-week residential academy, is much more
than basic training. Hairston still keeps in touch with
the 17-year-old she mentored who graduated from the
program in December. She wouldn't have it any other way.
"This is the one person who's putting their trust in you,"
she says.
B
is for Big Shoes and a
Bright Red Nose
The first time Alan Salas and Rahul Rasheed (see opening
photo) volunteered at the Ronald McDonald House, Rasheed
decided not to play it straight and to dress like a
doctor-clown instead. "All the gags worked," says Rasheed,
a neuroscience premed. "Everybody loved the whoopee
cushion." That's when he and Salas, a premed studying
biology and Italian, decided to start Clowning Around
Baltimore to cheer up children at the Mt. Washington
Pediatric Center. The group now has about 15 Hopkins
undergrad clowns, who sport crazy wigs, size 17 shoes, and
bright red noses. You don't need training, just
enthusiasm. "If you have a nose, you're a clown," says
Salas, whose squeaky rubber nose was a gift from his mom.
Rasheed and Salas now spend most of their weekends
entertaining kids. That's quite a time commitment, but
it's a pleasure, says Rasheed. "It's important to have
fun."
C
is for Cultural
Exchange
Legend has it that the Chinese Lion Dance brings blessings
and prosperity while dispelling evil spirits. Here at
Hopkins, the lion dance, as performed by the Chinese Lion
Dance Troupe, does something else: It bridges people and
cultures. For the last year, the all-volunteer troupe of
20 undergraduate dancers has donned the multi-person
costume to perform at some two dozen shelters, libraries,
hospitals, and schools. With each performance the group
explains the dance and how it relates to Chinese culture.
Then they encourage audience members to pick up a
papier-m&aacirc;ché and fabric lion and try the
dance themselves. "A lot of people have never seen the
Chinese Lion Dance or heard about it before," says Audrie
Lin, a senior biology major who founded the group. "It's
the best feeling ever that they learn something about our
culture. The kids really love it."
D
is for
Dumplings
Food isn't just about sustenance. It's about
companionship, laughter, affection. Bound by their
affinity for all of these things, a group of Hopkins
undergrads gets together Friday afternoons for Cooking for
Love. The volunteers — there are about a dozen each
week — prepare a meal in the
Bunting-Meyerhoff Interfaith and Community Service
Center, then transport it to My Sister's Place, a day
program for homeless women and their children in downtown
Baltimore. They've made double stuffed-cheeseburgers and
baked ziti, but because the group is culturally diverse,
the food tends to be as well. "We do stir fries, noodles
dishes, and we do fried rice a lot," says Yoo Mee Shin,
president of the group and a sophomore psychology major.
The group has even made dumplings. For 30 people. On a
budget of $40. "All of the volunteers have so much fun
cooking," Shin says. "I love to cook. Why not do it to
help people?"
E
is for Extra Hot
Half-Caf Vanilla Soy Chai Latte
Cup by cup, muffin by muffin, in five coffee bars dotted
around the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, the Women's
Board of the Johns Hopkins Hospital makes its mark. Last
year the volunteer group raised about $200,000 selling
lattes and the like to some 2,700 patients, faculty,
visitors, and staff per day. "It's one of our biggest
fundraisers," says Brenda M. Erozan, the group's
president. The Women's Board, which also runs the
Carry-on-Shop thrift store and two hospital gift shops and
organizes such fundraisers as the annual Best-Dressed Sale
at Evergreen House, donates roughly $850,000 annually to
Johns Hopkins Hospital. The money helps fund such projects
as construction of the new children's and maternal
hospital, the start-up of the Child Life Department and
the Diabetes Center, and other smaller grants to support
anything from the purchase of microscopes for the
pathology department to buying sleep chairs for
pediatrics. Now, that's a lotta java.
F
is for Fulfilling
Birthday Wishes
"There are those times when you sit around and think, Why
can't we . . . ?" says Anne-Marie Williams. "And I
thought, Why can't we help orphans?" Maryland no longer
has orphanages, but Williams, an office administrator for
the Air Defense Department at the
Applied Physics
Laboratory, found Villa Maria, a residential treatment
facility in Timonium for children who are, for the most
part, wards of the state. Ranging in age from about 5 to
14, most of these kids have no contact with their
families. Though charities take care of them at some of
the major holidays, Williams worried that one special day
was being forgotten: "Birthdays are personal," she says.
"It's the one day that no one else has." So she created
Forget-Me-Nots. Working with the staff at Villa Maria, she
gathers a list of children, their birthdays, and what
they'd like. Then she enlists her APL co-workers to buy
and wrap gifts to be delivered to the school. In the four
years she's been running Forget-Me-Nots, not one of Villa
Maria's nearly 100 children has been forgotten on that
special day.
G
is for Grandmother
Get-Togethers
When grandmothers bring their grandchildren to the monthly
Amazing Grandmothers program, they gather in a circle for
a story, participate in a group blessing, and enjoy a
home-cooked meal. But for these women raising their
children's children in one of the worst neighborhoods in
East Baltimore, it's the opportunity to share their
stories that brings them back month after month to Amazing
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church. "It's a sense of
knowing they're not alone," says Lori Edwards, an
instructor in the Johns Hopkins
School of Nursing
who founded the group in 2002 and still volunteers. "They
are happy to be together, all walking the same path." The
group — a joint effort by the church, Tench Tilghman
Elementary School, and the School of Nursing —
currently has just over a dozen grandmothers, who range in
age from mid-40s to 70s. These women have seen their share
of hardship — family members with AIDS and in
prison, lives ruined by crime and drugs, the trials of
being seniors raising children — but they persevere.
"One of the things that's been so amazing to me is how
dedicated and strong these particular grandmothers are,"
Edwards says.
H
is for Hammers,
Houses, and Hard Work
Whiting School of
Engineering's Todd Hufnagel volunteers with Habitat
for Humanity through his church, which has constructed 13
houses in Baltimore's impoverished Sandtown neighborhood.
"It's a very tangible way to feel like you've made a
difference," he says. "By the end of the day on Saturday,
you've built something." Rachel Heimann, assistant
director of the
Hopkins Hillel, agrees that building homes is valuable
work, reflecting the "Jewish value of social action."
Hillel participates in Habitat projects regularly as part
of its Alternative Spring Break. The students usually
choose "warm and exotic" destinations such as Mexico and
El Paso, Texas. That way, they can do good and have a
little fun.
I
is for (Model)
International Solutions
Each year, students at Hopkins'
Nitze School of Advanced
International Studies teach public school students
about international relations through the D.C. Student
Outreach program. They choose a relevant crisis —
this year the focus is North Korea — and assign
countries to individual high schools. During three weekly
sessions, SAIS students teach each school's group about
its country's perspective, policies, and concerns. Then
the schools come together for a joint crisis simulation.
Ravi Satkalmi, the SAIS student who directs the program,
says that some of the pupils come from classes that
require them to read newspapers daily; others have never
even heard of the crisis at hand. But after the monthlong
process, Satkalmi says, the students all seem to get it.
Last semester, he says, he brought along a Hopkins student
from Cyprus when the school was learning about that
country. "They were really able to go back and forth with
him," says Satkalmi.
J
is for
Jobs
The Computer Job Skills program, run by Hopkins
undergraduates Luis Ticona and Chris Russell, teaches the
women who reside at Marion House, a transitional home, the
computer skills they need to land a job. The students are
not computer whizzes — Ticona studies biology and
psychology and Russell, international relations — so
they concentrate on the basics. Success, says Ticona, can
start by becoming comfortable sitting in front of a
computer. Ticona remembers one woman who was mastering
PowerPoint: "She had such a look of joy and happiness on
her face. And I was like, this is cool. I'm doing a good
thing."
K
is for
Kaboom!
Wanna get kids interested in science? Blow something up.
It seems to work for Hopkins science researchers, who for
the past five years have been inviting elementary school
students to Hopkins for hands-on scientific experiments as
part of the annual Community Science Day. "The show is
usually entertaining," says Rhoda Alani, the Hopkins
cancer researcher who started the program. "Things change
colors, things explode." Alani says she wanted to "engage
kids from around this community that we drive through
every day and to give them a sense of what science is
about." So she enlisted her colleagues to open up their
labs to the students, and to demonstrate scientific
principles in fun and interesting ways. The 9- to
11-year-olds participate in four different experiments
throughout the day. The hope, says Alani, is that the day
will spark a kid's interest in this kind of work. "Maybe a
kid will say, 'Wow this is really neat.'"
L
is for a Living Room
Full of Stuff
For the past six years, Gloria Powell has volunteered to
coordinate her office's participation in Adopt-a-Family,
which provides underprivileged families with gifts,
clothes, and food in December. Powell, the administrative
assistant to the director of special programs at the
Applied Physics Laboratory, collects presents and money
from the 20 or so people in her office, shops for the two
families they adopt, then assembles the goodies for
delivery. (She also coordinates a 10-family effort for her
church.) "This past Christmas we had one grandmother who
had 10 grandchildren," she says. "You talk about a pile of
stuff!" Powell, who serves on the board of a nonprofit
shelter called Lazarus Caucus, also collects school
supplies at APL, sending "boxes and boxes" to the kids at
St. Ann's Infant and Maternity Home. The people at APL are
extremely generous, but she admits that she sometimes
pushes her luck. "I do have a reputation," she says. When
she walks in a room, "they ask, 'What's she collecting for
now?'"
M
is for Mozart and
More
When Peabody
Institute graduate student and guitarist Matt Carvin
wanted to reach out beyond the confines of his practice
room to the people of Baltimore, he decided to use music.
So just over a year ago, Carvin gathered a group of
like-minded Peabody students to form the Creative Access.
The group of about 90 musicians gives free, 30-minute
concerts at area day care and senior centers, hospitals,
and schools. The group started off playing Mozart and
Beethoven but has since expanded its repertoire to offer
sing-a-longs of "You Are My Sunshine" and "If I Had a
Hammer." "I find this very addicting," says Carvin, whose
group has played some 60 gigs. "I love seeing firsthand
how music can have an immediate effect on someone's
happiness."
N
is for the Next
Generation at Hopkins
Once a month from October through March, Dennis Haslup, a
communications supervisor for Hopkins Lifeline, heads to
Tench Tilghman Elementary School in East Baltimore as part
of Johns Hopkins Medicine's Adopt-a-Class program. There,
he and colleague Wanda Moss open up discussion with the
fourth-grade class on topics such as "Goals" and "Making
Your Plans." Though the kids are welcome to talk about any
kind of career, Haslup and Moss try to make them aware of
the possibilities in the health profession. "The kids
think that the only people who can work here are doctors
and nurses," says Haslup. Through Adopt-a-Class,
paramedics, communications dispatchers, lab technicians,
respiratory therapists, and even people from finance are
invited to talk to the students. In April, the students
come to the Hopkins medical campus, where they get to see
those careers in action. They also get an
up-close-and-personal introduction to the hospital's
ambulance and helicopter. "It's a blast!" says Haslup.
O
is for Overcoming
Childhood Obesity
As a pediatrician, Roy Hoffman saw the effects of
childhood obesity firsthand. "This is a major problem
facing pediatric health now," he says. "And it will only
get worse 20 years from now if we don't take any action
against it." Hoffman, who completed his pediatrics
residency in 2003, thought that such a widespread problem
should be tackled on a community level. So he decided to
do another residency, this time in preventive medicine at
Hopkins' Bloomberg School
of Public Health. There, he found a lot of people who
shared his concerns. Last fall, Hoffman and several fellow
preventive medicine residents (and later several other SPH
students) teamed up with state legislators — notably
Delegate Joan Stern and Senator Gwendolyn Britt — to
work on bills to combat childhood obesity. If the bills
pass, Maryland schools would have to follow new nutrition
guidelines regarding what kind and how much food to serve
to children, including a substantial reduction in junk
food and sodas offered, and schools would have to meet new
minimum standards for physical education.
P
is for Pedal, Pedal,
Pedal
In the heat of summer, the volunteers bike 4,000 miles
from Johns Hopkins University to San Francisco's Golden
Gate Bridge to raise money to fight cancer. The annual
trek, known as
Hopkins 4K for Cancer, was founded in 2002 by Hopkins
sophomores Leah Blom and Ryan Hanley, who wanted to
combine their desire to combat cancer with their dreams of
cycling across the country. Their journey was inspired by
the memory of Hanley's father, John Hanley, who died of
cancer in 1995. To date the group has raised about
$160,000 for cancer research. "The experience was
incredibly challenging and incredibly rewarding," says Rob
Byers, a 25-year-old Peabody Conservatory graduate student
who was one of 27 students on the team last summer. Byers
rode 50 to 110 miles every day for 64 days. He also helped
raise $60,000 for the American Cancer Society's Hope Lodge
in Baltimore. This year's trek — the fourth annual
— takes off May 29.
Q
is for Quality Health
Care for the Homeless
Every Wednesday night, about 40 people line up at the
Baltimore Rescue Mission Clinic, waiting to be seen by
physician John Dalton and his team of Johns Hopkins
"deputies." Both medical students and undergraduate
hopefuls volunteer their time at the clinic to help
provide the homeless with much needed primary care —
and to get invaluable experience. Under Dalton's
supervision, the students talk to patients about whatever
problem brought them to the clinic. Then they present each
case to the doctor and help make an assessment. This
hands-on training not only allows the team to make it
through a daunting caseload, it goes a long way toward
prepping students for med school. "Whether it's your first
time or your hundredth time, you get trained every single
time you're there," says neuroscience major Eric Tan, who
has volunteered at the clinic for two and a half years. "A
lot of kids say they want to be physicians, but they don't
really know what it means. This really reinforced that I
wanted to help people in this capacity."
R
is for Round, Perfect
Pumpkin
Up and down and all around, the little boy from St.
Jerome's Head Start program walked, surveying the pumpkins
in the field. He looked at hundreds before he found the
perfect one and hoisted it high. His usually serious face
brightened. Months after this outing, Natalie Leonard
still remembers that smile. Leonard, a secretary in the
Dean's Office of the
Whiting School of
Engineering, was part of a United Way Day of Caring
this fall that paired 17 Hopkins volunteers with 18
preschoolers of St. Jerome's Head Start. The event,
organized by the Hopkins Office of Faculty, Staff, and
Retiree Programs, was one of dozens of similar day-long
community outreach projects that annually draw volunteers
from across the university. Some volunteers paint schools
and weed flowerbeds. Others clean up trash on the street.
What keeps Leonard coming back? "It was just the
satisfaction of knowing that I helped make a child happy
for a day," the grandmother of five says. "The kids got so
much out of it. So did I."
S
is for Saving
Smiles
Patrick Byrne has given lots of kids something to smile
about. Each year, he takes a team of volunteers from
Hopkins and other area hospitals — all pay their own
way — to Ecuador to perform surgery on
underprivileged children. The trips are organized by the
non-profit Ecuadent Foundation. A Hopkins
otolaryngologist and facial plastic surgeon, Byrne
spends most of his weeklong trip repairing cleft lips and
cleft palates — surgeries that have "the maximum
impact for the minimum risk," he says. Byrne estimates
that he's performed as many as 140 surgeries since he
started these trips four years ago. "I [have been] so
pumped up to help as many kids as possible that I probably
overworked the staff," he says. This surgery spares
children from a lifetime of difficulty breathing, eating,
and speaking — and helps put an end to their feeling
self-conscious about the way they look. Says Byrne, "The
experience — when you hand this kid back to their
mom, and sometimes the moms don't recognize the kid at
first, and then they start smiling and crying and hugging
you — it's just wonderful. It's awesome."
T
is for Toothbrushes for
Everyone!
Little things can mean a lot in Haiti, which is why
teaching kids about dental health and handing out
toothbrushes is so rewarding for Beth Sloand. "They love
it," says Sloand, an assistant professor in the
School of Nursing.
"Anything we do for the children — or for the adults
— the people are grateful for whatever we bring."
For the past six years, Sloand has been spending some of
her vacation providing health care — for acute
problems like infections and injuries to chronic
hypertension and malnutrition — to the people of
Leon as part of the Parish Twinning Program of the
Americas. She has turned the trips into a teaching
opportunity, taking along several nursing students and
faculty as volunteers. Keeping people healthy in a place
with no electricity, no phone service, and increasing
violence is a challenge. (With the recent government
upheaval, they've had to suspend the student trips as part
of the Johns Hopkins program.) But Sloand is committed to
her mission. "The first time I went to Haiti, I was just
taken with the place," she says. "I don't feel that I have
a choice. I just have to go back and do what I can."
U
is for Unabashed
Enthusiasm
They dance in stocking feet. They practice in a
multipurpose room with pool tables but no mirrors and no
barre. But the 20 or so elementary school students
involved in the after-school ballet and tap program at
Barclay Recreation Center in Baltimore don't care. "They
really love coming to class each week," says Brittany
Sterrett, a Hopkins sophomore who has volunteered to teach
ballet for the last two years. The class is coordinated
through the Greater Homewood Community Corporation. The
students will show off their new dance moves in a talent
show this spring. "Baltimore doesn't really have any arts
programs in the schools, and especially not a dance
program, so it's a good way for them to express themselves
through art — and exercise at the same time,"
Sterrett says.
V
is for Very Messy
Hands
They paint. They glue. They glitter. They spend hours
creating greeting cards, picture frames, and other crafts,
then they give them away to organizations like Meals on
Wheels, Keswick Nursing Home, and the Baltimore Child
Abuse Center. For the 100-plus student volunteers of
Patchwork, a group that was started two years ago by
junior Allison Leung, crafting has become a vital way to
connect. "I think arts and crafts are one of the best ways
to develop a relationship with others," says Leung, whose
group also crafts with children at the
Kennedy Krieger
Institute. "When you do an art project you really put
yourself in it, and it reflects you and how you feel. So
it is a great way to interact with the Baltimore
community."
W
is for "We Know You're
Young, But It's Time to Start Thinking About Your
Future"
The Maryland Business Roundtable for Education (MBRT)
recruits professionals from around the state to help high
school students prepare for life after graduation. Not
only do hospital president Ronald Peterson and university
board of trustees chair Raymond "Chip" Mason serve on its
board, but 77 other Hopkins volunteers (up from just 19
last year) have signed up to go into classrooms and speak
directly to the students. After receiving training, they
visit ninth-grade classes to talk about their jobs, give
personal accounts of professional steps (and missteps),
and advise students about how to prepare for life after
high school. "I didn't know that colleges looked at your
grades from ninth, 10th, and 11th grade. . . . I thought
it was only from the 12th grade," said one student after
an MBRT visit. Said another: "I learned that people don't
always have to know you to care about you."
X
is for XL
Xmas
Members of the Hopkins men's
lacrosse team are top-ranked
athletes and hardworking students. They're also community
volunteers. As part of the new "Holiday Magic" program
initiated by assistant coach Seth Tierney, the team raised
$5,330 and collected hundreds of toys, articles of cold
weather clothing, and school supplies for needy Baltimore
children. Members of the team delivered the gifts to city
schoolchildren, patients at Johns Hopkins Hospital's
Children's Center, and the Marion House. "One of the
neatest moments for me came at the Hopkins Hospital
clinic," recalls co-captain Chris Watson. "I gave a young
boy a gift, and his eyes lit up. But then he didn't open
it. I asked him if he needed help with the wrapping paper,
and he said 'No,' that he was going to save the gift until
Christmas morning so he could have something to enjoy. "It
was pretty amazing," he continues. "It reminded us all how
lucky we are to live the comfortable lives we do, and to
have the chance to represent one of the world's top
institutions on the [lacrosse] field and in the
community."
Y
is for Young at
Heart
The young have enthusiasm. The old have experience. Put
the two groups together and what do you get? Experience
Corps Baltimore. The volunteer service program is a
partnership between Johns Hopkins, the Baltimore City
Schools, Civic Ventures, and the Greater Homewood
Community Corporation. The program places teams of trained
older adults in the city's elementary schools to work in
classrooms, school libraries, or in supportive roles such
as teaching violence prevention and monitoring attendance.
Last year, 90 senior citizens volunteered at six city
schools. No doubt they deserve an "A" for "Admirable."
Z
is for
Zucchini
Inch by inch, row by row, the brothers of Alpha Phi Omega
are helping to make the gardens of Garden Harvest grow.
The Glyndon-based nonprofit donates its crops of organic
fruits and vegetables to soup kitchens, food pantries, and
other not-for-profits that feed the hungry. But it's a big
job, and they need lots of help. Enter APO, the largest
student-run community service organization on the Homewood
campus. With more than 150 active members, the fraternity
regularly provides volunteers for 20 to 25 projects in
Baltimore, including Our Daily Bread, the Maryland Zoo in
Baltimore, and Junior Achievement. That's about 2,300 to
3,000 service hours each term. For APO's Susie So Jang,
working on the farm last summer was a welcome way to
practice her love of gardening while meeting interesting
people. "The atmosphere was really relaxed and fun," says
Jang, a senior majoring in neuroscience who is APO's
project coordinator for Garden Harvest. "You not only work
with people from Hopkins, but sometimes high school
students and other service organizations from different
universities are working alongside you. So you get to meet
and bond with a great variety of individuals."
A is for Act Now!
If you're interested volunteering, here are some groups
that can get you started:
Center for Social Concern
CSC is a volunteer clearinghouse and training ground for
Johns Hopkins undergraduates. Student groups apply for
both recognition and funding. Currently, CSC administers
more than 30 student groups and runs such outreach efforts
as Baltimore Free University, the JHU Tutorial Project,
the freshman day of service, and others. 410-516-4777, www.jhu.edu/csc.
Johns Hopkins Health Systems Corporate and Community
Services
JHHS offers volunteering opportunities through a number of
community partnerships. Faculty and staff can participate
in a variety of programs — from one-on-one mentoring
and reading days at city elementary schools, to
neighborhood cleanups, to the annual "Science Day," in
which nearly 200 kids spend the day at Hopkins doing
hands-on experiments in the laboratories. 410-614-0744.
Johns Hopkins Medicine Youth and Community
Programs
JHM's Department of Human Resources maintains community
partnerships that help current and future members of the
workforce. Volunteer opportunities for staff include
adult-education programs that teach skills necessary to
succeed in the workplace. Youth programs include
mentoring, paid and non-paid internships, job shadowing,
lectures, college and career fairs, and tours of the Johns
Hopkins facilities.
www.hopkinsmedicine.org/jhhr/Community.
Office of Faculty, Staff, and Retiree Programs
Part of JHU's Human Resources Department, the Office of
Faculty, Staff, and Retiree Programs was established in
1992 to encourage team spirit among the university's
25,000 employees and to strengthen their community
involvement. The office runs the university's United Way
of Central Maryland campaign and offers numerous service
opportunities, including American Red Cross blood drives,
the American Cancer Society's Daffodil Days, the Martin
Luther King Jr. Community Service Awards, and many others.
410-516-6060,
www.jhu.edu/hr/fsrp.
The SOURCE
Started in January 2005, the SOURCE (Student OUtreach
Resource CEnter) is the community service and volunteerism
center for the schools of Public Health, Medicine, and
Nursing, linking students, faculty, and staff with local
nonprofits. Its community partners are mostly in close
proximity to the East Baltimore campus and work in
advocacy, neighborhood development, the environment,
tutoring and mentoring, HIV/AIDS, mental health, community
health, and many other areas. 410-955-3880,
www.jhsph.edu/Student_Affairs/InterAction.
Spirit of Giving
Spirit of Giving is a volunteer committee that coordinates
charitable work at the Applied Physics Laboratory. Each
year they sponsor the Ron Vauk car wash (Vauk was an APL
employee killed at the Pentagon on 9/11; car wash proceeds
go to a fund to support his children and to the Johns
Hopkins Children's Center), the Angel Tree, and Toys for
Tots, among others. 443-778-6286 or 443-778-4803.
Directory of Community Partnerships
The Directory of Community Partnerships presents an
inventory of the community-oriented initiatives affiliated
with the Johns Hopkins Institutions in the
Baltimore/Washington area. The directory includes a
listing of projects, project-specific information,
information for service users and project volunteers, and
a searchable database. Right now, only Johns Hopkins
personnel can view the database (those interested can
request access by e-mailing
crdirectory@jhu.edu), though it will be available to
the general public this spring. www.jhu.edu/wecare.
Greater Homewood Community Corporation
GHCC works to strengthen the 40 neighborhoods of north
central Baltimore through improving education, supporting
youth development, and advancing economic development.
Volunteering opportunities include mentoring children in
schools, providing literacy and English language programs,
working with neighborhood associations, and helping to
promote appreciation of the Jones Falls watershed.
410-261-3500,
www.greaterhomewood.org.
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