Marquette students help city residents with fall chores
Hundreds participate in Make A Difference Day
Trimming bushes and putting away patio furniture for the winter were two jobs that Lydia Russ of West Allis just wasn’t up for this fall.
“I like to keep the place neat and tidy,” said the 90-year-old Russ, so it bothered her that the yard work hadn’t been done.
Fortunately, a group of Marquette University students came to her home Saturday to take care of things.
They cut back a rose bush, trimmed a lilac bush, swept the snow off the patio, put away the furniture and covered everything up nicely with a tarp.
“They did everything I wanted. And I would like to give every one of them an A-plus because they did it all so perfectly,” Russ said.
“There was just no way I could have paid somebody to do it for me,” she said.
The students were part of Marquette’s “Make A Difference Day” aimed at helping Milwaukee area senior citizens with various chores before winter sets in and some of the work can’t easily be done.
About 375 students participated, with many of them raking leaves trapped under the snow.
It was a way for the students, many of them fairly new to Milwaukee, to connect with the broader community.
“Raking leaves, painting a wall or picking up trash are all great ways to serve. But I have come to recognize the deeper meaning behind those acts,” said Elizabeth Killian, a Marquette junior from New York.
“Service is a way to cultivate relationships,” Killian said.
She’s been involved in other community service projects here, too. One of the biggest that Marquette sponsors is in the spring when about 1,200 students fan out across the city to do things such as yard work, painting and preparing meals for needy individuals.
“Service, broadly speaking, is a big component of what our student experience is about,” said Kelly Walker, director of Community Service at Marquette.
“I think it’s really important for us, as Marquette students, to get out into the greater Milwaukee area and actually immerse ourselves in the community, and not just be so involved in this Marquette bubble,” said Valerie Del Campo, a Marquette senior from Waukegan, Illinois.
“We need to realize where we are, and where we are centered, because Marquette is in this community that does need help,” she said.
For Killian, getting off campus also broadened her view of the city.
“Going door to door on the near west side pushed me out of my comfort zone … Yes, I was nervous, apprehensive and did not know what to expect. But, most of all, I was excited about it,” she said.
“This was something I would never have seen myself doing in college … but it’s the people I get to meet and build relationships with that pushes me to want to serve my community in the best way I can.”
Shawn Turner, a Marquette senior from Milwaukee, was out to rake leaves and spend some time with the city’s older residents.
“I think it’s important, because I have a grandmother, and I feel like a lot of older people are really lonely and have to shoulder all of the burdens themselves,” Turner said.
He spends a lot of time volunteering with the Boys & Girls Clubs in the city.
“This is definitely not a one day a year thing for me. I try to do service throughout the school year,” he said.
“Being a kid from the inner city, I was truly affected, in a positive manner when I connected with people who cared,” Turner said, and those folks included Marquette tutors and other volunteers.