Many of our colleagues are interested in engaging with the community around them. A popular introduction to community engagement is through a Day of Service, or a single day in which volunteer activities are organized. While we encourage these forms of community engagement, we also want to stress that equity-centered community engagement should be at the heart of any activity.
After many years of running these days of service, we’ve prepared a tool to help groups think through these activities fully–the manual can be found here.
If you are interested in creating a Day of Service, Dwight Hall is available for consultation.
Lydia Burleson served as the Communications and Alumni Engagement Associate for Dwight Hall at Yale, Center for Public Service and Social Justice from June 2021-June 2022. A first-generation low-income student from rural Texas, Lydia graduated from Yale cum laude in 2021 with a degree in English and a nonfiction creative writing concentration. During her college years, Lydia increased awareness of marginalized voices with the public writing she did for The Yale Daily News and the Yale Admissions office. Her Dwight Hall experiences included free college advising with student-led member groups REACH and Matriculate. Dwight Hall empowered Lydia to uplift other disadvantaged students and to increase access to education for people who might not have otherwise received these resources. She is currently completing an English PhD at Stanford University with a Knight-Hennessy Fellowship.
