Fordham Inspires Internships for the Common Good

Greg Mason chats with Susannah Bourbeau and Sr. Mary Heyser of RSHM Volunteers.

On Nov. 5, Fordham sponsored its first Common Good Internship Fair at the Rose Hill campus, bringing in recruiters not from for-profit corporations but from nonprofits, education, healthcare, government, post-grad service, and social enterprising industries.

The idea is to offer Fordham students more mission-centered opportunities.

“At most career fairs the nonprofits are shoved in the corner,” said Greg Mason, FCRH ’05.

Mason was back at his alma mater to recruit Fordham talent for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.  He said that it was unique to see the nonprofits being separated out from the financial and marketing firms that usually dominate career fairs.

“It’s not surprising that Fordham would have a career fair like this, but it is surprising that it’s the first one,” said senior Rachel Nass, a sociology major looking for a job that would include doing work for for social justice.

Indeed, many of the students and recruiters found the event to be a tangible example of “Living the Mission” campaign adopted by University Mission and Ministry, which co-sponsored the event through the Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice. Together with Fordham's Career Services, the center was able to keep the costs of participating at minimum in order to encourage cash-strapped nonprofits to participate. Among those who were able to attend were East Harlem Tutorial Program, LAMP Ministries, Global Citizen, and the Fresh Air Fund.

Career services’ employee relations specialist Christie Welch said that while the career fair didn’t command the attendance numbers of a general fair, recruiters had great feedback about those who did attend, calling them “superb” students who “really knew what they were talking about.”

Fordham College at Rose Hill senior Frank Shaparro, an economics major with a theology minor, fit the profile of a Fordham professional with a concern for the common good.

“I’m interested in how our Christian ideals work their way in to the way we organize our economy,” said Shaparro. “So this is great because it provides both opportunities--you can apply to the nonprofits and some private-side initiatives.”

Donna Smith, senior recruiter at YAI, an agency that services intellectual and developmentally disabled adults, said that she found the fair heartening on a personal level.

“I was pleasantly surprised to come to a fair that targets human services, because it’s so needed,” she said. “It really speaks to people who do passion work and it reinforces for me why I do the work I do.”

--Tom Stoelker

End of the Year Move Out Benefits Local Charities

The Salvation Army picked up donations at
the Rose Hill campus on May 24.
Photo by Tom Stoelker

The end of the academic year always brings an exodus from the ten residence halls at Fordham’s Rose Hill Campus. 

But this year, as students boxed and bagged up their possessions, a concerted effort by the University’s office of Residential Life and the Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice steered the gently used clothing, furniture and house wares that might have otherwise been discarded toward the Bronx’ neediest residents. 

Elizabeth Amico, Assistant Director for Housing Operations estimated that eight lounges around campus were filled with donations, reflecting a more concerted effort to let students know, about the effort before they began packing up the summer.

“Some lounges, you could not even walk into and we had to break stuff up into multiple lounges,” she said.

Betamia Coronel, the Dorothy Day Center’s associate coordinator of community service, said the groups that accepted donations this year included the Salvation Army, Thorpe Family Residence, P.O.T.S. soup kitchen, Fordham Bedford Community Services , Fordham University RETC – Center for Professional Development, Concourse House, and the Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter. 

—Patrick Verel

Fordham Seeking Volunteers for 2011 HOPE Count

Are you interested in giving up one night of your time to help the homeless?

Fordham University’s Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice is recruiting students, staff and faculty to participate in the annual Homeless Outreach Population Estimate (HOPE) count, to be held at the Rose Hill campus on Monday, Jan. 31.

The annual event attracts some 3000 volunteers citywide, who spend one night a year combing streets, subways, parks and public spaces to count the numbers of New Yorkers who live unsheltered in the city.

For the past six years, Fordham has been designated one of the volunteer training center sites for Bronx neighborhoods by the city’s Department of Homeless Services. Last year some 120 volunteers were trained at the Fordham site to participate in the count, which takes place in surrounding Bronx neighborhoods from midnight to 4 a.m. Groups travel on foot and are accompanied by New York City police patrolmen.

Information gathered on the 2011 HOPE count will be used to determine federal and state money to be allocated to New York and, more specifically, to each borough.

For more information or to volunteer, contact Caitlin Becker associate coordinator of Community Service at the Day Center or register on line.

--Janet Sassi