A New Harvard Chan School Holiday: Day of Service
The Harvard Chan School of Public Health is alive with chatter and filled with blankets, school supplies, and bright cards. More Harvard Chan School community members are sprinkled throughout Boston, pulling weeds or cleaning puppy play areas at a shelter.
I’m in the South End, hands covered in dust and dirt from sorting books.
Today has become one of my favorite days of the year: The Harvard Chan School Day of Service. There’s only been two of them so far, with hopefully more on the way. Everyone in the school is encouraged to dedicate whatever time they can to a wide range of community service projects both on and off campus.
This year, 2024, over 400 Harvard Chan School Community members showed up to serve, including alumni participating in five different cities.
The Day of Service projects show me how health is connected in all ways. Each one is related to a different social determinant of health, which, according to the World Health Organization, are “…non-medical factors that influence health outcomes,” such as housing, food insecurity, income, and the environment.
It means a lot to me to connect with others and their incredible missions, like the organization I volunteered at this year, More Than Words (MTW), a youth-ran bookstore empowering homeless youth and those in foster care with business skills and resources for jobs and education.
As a lifelong bookworm, I had to look at MTW’s mission again to make sure such a powerful place was real. Along with a group from Harvard Chan School, I learned how MTW functions as a store and as a safe, supportive place for youth before I got to work categorizing donated books. I am awed by the work MTW does and happy I got to be a small part of it.
The Day of Service allows me to jump into areas and put myself to work, even if I know nothing about it. My fellow volunteers and I learn as we help—about our tasks, about the organization, and the folks they serve.
Last year, it was humbling to assemble winter care packages in the Harvard Chan School atrium with Pine Street Inn, the largest homeless services provider in New England. We wrote notes to people we’d never meet, facing challenges I am privileged to never have known. We packed bags with socks, gloves, other supplies, and our notes. And we sealed every bag with care.
It’s important to pour love into where you live.
As a transplant to Boston from Bradenton, Florida, it’s an honor to contribute to the community I moved to. Assembling winter packages is a little different than kayaking through mangroves and grabbing trash in the heat, but the love is the same.
I am thrilled I can continue to show appreciation for my home and find places I didn’t even know existed to volunteer through Harvard Chan School.
I hit the sunny streets of Boston after MTW feeling like I was floating, filled with gratitude and a sappy sense of belongingness. Anyone whose spent time giving back knows that glowing feeling it gives you. So, there’s some selfishness in there, too. Helping other people helps you.
Don’t just take my word for it, though. People a lot smarter than me found that volunteering could help you live longer. Dr. Laura Kubzansky, Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Director of the Society and Health Laboratory, notes the link between volunteering and lifespan and explains how focusing on prosocial behaviors in public health could help people manage their health in the long-term, including during political instability, in the Q&A, “The positive health effects of prosocial behavior.”
When the world, near and far, is violent or distressing, volunteering is a way for me to feel like I’m making a positive difference within what I can control.
But along with all the serious moral reasons and health benefits, volunteering is simply fun. I got to scan books, select titles to be sold, and shoot the trash into bins like I was in the NBA. Serving others moves you off your butt (and off your phone) and out creating a beneficial impact for others and for yourself. Okay, I’m not sure the volunteers sanitizing the puppy outdoor play areas would agree on volunteering always being fun, but it is always worthwhile.
It is exciting to be part of a movement, knowing everyone from faculty, staff, students, and alumni, are out spending their time doing something for the community. I am proud to be part of an institution that encourages us to take time to immerse ourselves in serving others.
Volunteering for the Day of Service helps me connect with Harvard Chan’s mission through the local community and feel even more passionate to do what I can to contribute to it: “…to improve health and promote equity so all people can thrive.”
