READING, Pa. – Hundreds of new Alvernia University students came together Saturday, but not for studying.<\/p>\n
This is a different kind of work.<\/p>\n
Giving back to the next generation of students who are members of the Boys and Girls Club before they begin their school year.<\/p>\n
“We’re doing little welcome kits for all of the kids who go. Making a bunch of posters, banners, and were also just cleaning up the inside, sprucing it up for them,” said Dylan Zyats.<\/p>\n
“We’ve been making signs, filling lunch boxes, cleaning up the park. Just everything we can to help the community,” said Parker Bennett.<\/p>\n
And staff at the club say, with about 600 students in Alvernia’s freshman class involved, this collegiate cohort is a big help.<\/p>\n
“This event itself is the first time that we’re coming together at this scale, which is really exciting to see.” Sarah Althen-Haggerty is the Boys and Girls Club Director of Development. She’s got a feeling the college kids are getting something pretty valuable out of this as well.<\/p>\n
“I know from experience myself how meaningful it can be to engage with a non-profit, to really find your way in a community, to feel connected and like you’re giving back. It gives you a sense of purpose, and I hope gives them a sense of belonging.”<\/p>\n
But you don’t have to take her word for it, the students will tell you themselves.<\/p>\n
“I moved, so I’m a part of this community now. I’m a part of it and know what’s going on and try to help as much as I can and make it a good place,” said Cameron Hill.<\/p>\n
A good place, and a good experience before these kids hit the books.<\/p>\n
“It’s an amazing thing that we’re able to come out and help the community the way we are,”said\u00a0Zyats<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. – Hundreds of new Alvernia University students came together Saturday, but not for studying. This is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[113999,31335,28,736,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-270407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-alvernia","tag-boys-and-girls-club","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}