SOUTH PORTLAND — Southern Maine Community College held events for National Volunteering Week.  

On Friday, April 22, the Southern Maine Community College Community Service Club held a fundraising event for the homeless population in Portland. During this event, the club was able to raise $300 to buy supplies for essential kits. The kits include items such as socks, underwear, snacks and hygiene items.  

“We have a lot of events lined up for a whole week of volunteering,” said Suzanne Hanvey, president of the Community Service Club. “The club plans to continue doing events such as this in the future to help as many people as possible,” 

The event took place at the Noisy Lounge where students helped put together the kits. After the kits were put together students went to Portland to hand them out from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.  

“The Earth Day fest was a collaboration between the horticulture club, community service club, Phi Theta Kappa, and student senate,” said Hanvey. “Doing something for Earth Day such as a clean-up has been a tradition in recent years at Southern Maine Community College and these clubs wanted to expand on that tradition by adding more educational activities and some other earth-friendly activities such as planting wildflower pollinator-friendly seeds throughout the campus.

“Though the turnout was small due to many still being wary about going out from COVID, the few who did show were able to learn, pick up the campus, and plant lots of flowers that we hope to see later in the spring. These clubs hope to continue this tradition next year with an even greater turnout from the community,” 

The Community Service Club held many fundraising events during the Volunteer Week. The events included serving food at  Preble Street Soup Kitchen, a food drive at the Captain’s Cupboard, a nature clean-up at Fore River Sanctuary, and helping baby animals of Maine at the Saco River Wildlife Center spring clean-up, and clean-up at the local parks beginning at Congress Square Park. The club celebrated at the end of the week to acknowledge the students’ work in volunteering with trip to Spare Time Bowling in Portland. 

“We do plan on doing another event for handing out clothes and meals to the homeless in the Portland area, not this week but sometime next. The date hasn’t been decided quite yet,” said Hanvey. 

Southern Maine Community College held its Earth Day Festival on April 22.  The Community Service club held a beautification project to help support Earth Day. 

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