UC Students Flow Into the Streets to Beautify the Uptown

Despite the unseasonably warm weekend, the University of Cincinnati’s Into the Streets day of volunteer service brought out 165 UC students – 20 teams of student volunteers – to work up a sweat and assist nine community partners in improving the Uptown.

Kathy Dick, director of the UC Center for Community Engagement (CCE), says the seven-hour day of service on Oct. 6 was an opportunity for students to demonstrate that they care for the community that surrounds campus. Dick says Into the Streets 2007 was a collaborative effort between the CCE and two local community organizations: the CUF Community Council, which is the voice of the Clifton Heights, University Heights and Fairview community members, and the Clifton Heights Improvement Association, an organization that works to make Clifton Heights a better place to live.

Beth Nagy, an Into the Streets organizer, CCE consultant and doctoral student in the urban educational leadership program in the College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services, says volunteers scrubbed windows for businesses in Clifton Heights and swept glass, cleared sewer grates and picked up litter along a lengthy stretch of city blocks. She says they also worked construction at the UC/Cincinnati Habitat for Humanity build site in Avondale and, at Taft Elementary and Wynn Child Development Center, the student volunteers painted, took inventory and moved classroom furniture.

Nagy, an Uptown resident and member of both the CUF Community Council and the Clifton Heights Community Council, says, “There were a lot of people working to put this together and we think this was a very successful event.”

“It was a very positive experience,” agrees Julie Murray, a CUF Community Council Trustee. “The volunteers did a fantastic job. I worked with 13 students on my team.

“They worked hard, they were pleasant, and we had great conversation. I think this effort built relationships as well as an investment in the common neighborhood that we share,” Murray says.

Nagy says community representatives were so impressed with the enthusiasm of the student volunteers that they’re now exploring possibilities of recruiting student volunteers to assist regular community-organized block monitor programs to keep the Uptown litter-free.

Into the Streets exemplifies UC|21 values of public engagement and purpose in serving the local Cincinnati community.