First-years participate in 23rd annual GIV Day
Photo Credit: Gettysburg.edu
By Chelsea Donohue, Features Editor
Learning how to get involved was not a hard task this past Friday, as first-years and upper-class student volunteers participated in Gettysburg College’s 23rd annual GIV Day. Run by the Center for Public Service, “GIV Day is the first opportunity for [students] to engage in the local community as well as learn about social justice issues while connecting with classmates, upper-class students and people in the Gettysburg community,” as stated by the event’s webpage. Senior Emily Hauck was the 2013 GIV Day coordinator, along with senior Helena Yang running this year’s Poverty Simulation.
This year’s GIV Day was not unlike others, with a huge turnout from first-years and a large amount of student volunteers helping out. Students first attended a breakfast held in the ballroom, followed by two varying activities that were broken up by half-day time slots.
One activity, the Poverty Simulation, was experienced by every first-year, either in the beginning or end of the day. Run by senior Helena Yang, the Poverty Simulation allowed first-year students to step into the shoes of real-life families living in Adams County.
The simulation runs for a total of one hour, broken up into four 15-minute “weeks.” Every first-year student is assigned a role in a certain family, with positions varying from “mother,” to “three-year-old child.” The simulation provides first-years with the opportunity to see what it is like for families living below the poverty line in the surrounding community.
According to Yang, “For that one hour…the first-years experience the emotional roller coaster that comes with trying to meet basic needs like food and housing. Many end up…[doing] things that we would never consider doing, but when you are stressed, frazzled, and short on time and money, it is incredibly difficult not to fall into a downward spiral.”
This was very evident in the behavior of the “first-year family members,” as each student played his/her role and struggled to make it to jobs, pay mortgage payments, and have enough time to pick up groceries. “Understanding this feeling of desperation is the first step to making us more willing to be compassionate and caring to others from different situations and proactive in making systematic changes,” Yang adds.
For the other half of the first-years respective days, the students attended various sites around the community, taking part in volunteering activities run by student leaders and Program Coordinators for CPS. Some community programs first-years were assigned to were the Literacy Council, the Office for Aging, Painted Turtle Farm, and various schools.
According to GIV Day coordinator Emily Hauck, “GIV Day is one of the most important aspects of the First Year orientation process because it introduces the new students to the countless opportunities for service that exist in the Adams County community. [It] emphasizes the need to get off campus and become familiar with the surrounding community and its needs.”
Hauck also remembers and reflects on her own GIV Day and the impact it had on her as a first-year student. She says, “I participated in GIV Day my first year here and its message of service and social justice was so powerful to me. If even a few first year students felt that way after visiting a local organization and doing the poverty simulation, then I would say the event was a success.”
And this year’s GIV Day was definitely a success, as one could tell by walking around the ballroom at the end-of-day lunch and reflection time. First-years looked through CPS brochures, discussed the day’s events with new friends from their sites and shared plans on getting involved with different CPS programs and the surrounding community.
