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Spring break is a time for relaxing, catching up on sleep and taking a break from studies, but for some Hamilton College students it also means serving others.  Ten groups equaling 100 students are spending a week of their break volunteering at one of 10 nonprofit organizations through Alternative Spring Break (ASB), March 15-28.

Hamilton serves. This simple two-word sentence can have a multitude of meanings depending on who you ask.  For some, it is simply a slogan plastered onto a crisp blue t-shirt. For members of the Community Outreach and Opportunity Project (COOP), though, it holds much more significance.  For these individuals, “Hamilton serves” is a lifestyle.

More than 80 members of the Hamilton community participated in the America’s Greatest Heart Run and Walk on March 7 in Utica.  This year’s donations are still being counted,  but in 2014 Team Hamilton raised $9,727 for the American Heart Association. Hamilton organizers  hope to come close to that amount for this year. The entire 2015 event included about 8,000 participants, with more than $1 million raised.

A BOCES special education class of New Hartford High School students had the opportunity to test their green thumbs with a visit to Hamilton’s Taylor Science Center greenhouse on March 2. The visit was coordinated by Hillary Joy Pitoniak, greenhouse and invertebrate care technician, with the help of Kara Pintye-Everett ’17, who is a COOP service intern at Madison-Oneida BOCES.

Hamilton College on Feb. 16 welcomed four area residents, each boasting an impressive resume of work within the Utica community, for a discussion “The Utica Panel: Examining Social Issues and Community Connections.”

The start of the Spring 2015 semester at Hamilton marks the 10th anniversary of Students Helping in the Naturalization of Elders, or Project SHINE, operated through the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center.  The service-learning program helps students understand the needs and circumstances of others through work in the community.  Students act as English coaches to refugees and immigrants, and work one-on-one or in small groups with adult learners and young adults.

Six members of the Hamilton Men’s Soccer team traveled to Guatemala for a service trip during winter break in January through the Guatemala Healing Hands Foundation (GHHF). They spent a week in the village of Chichoy Alto, in the region of Patzun, Chimaltenango, where they worked to help finish building  the village school. With the newly constructed second floor, students entering middle school will now have adequate space to continue their education.

Nearly 150 students will gather for Hamilton’s 17th annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Service Day on Saturday, Jan. 24. The community service event, run by the Hamilton Association for Volunteering, Outreach and Charity ( HAVOC), sends students to a wide variety of non-profit organizations across the area for volunteer work.

Hamilton’s 39 January admits and six transfer students participated in Hamilton Serves on Saturday, Jan. 17, as part of their orientation. They visited seven area non-profit agencies  for a morning of service.

Hamilton community service programs HAVOC and COOP collected food, gifts and other items to make the holidays a bit happier for some local families. The Hamilton Association for Volunteering, Outreach and Charity (HAVOC) sponsored a holiday Mitten Tree, bearing gift requests from children with a need.  The children’s gift requests came through House of Good Shepherd,  Johnson Park Center (JPC) in Utica, Upstate Cerebral Palsy, Siegenthaler Center (Hospice) and Rome DSS.