A longstanding university tradition that embodies AUC’s values of social accountability and engagement, Community Action Day connects students and colleagues with local organizations for a day of service each semester to focus on community priorities.
More than 300 AUC students and colleagues participated in 15+ service projects in health, education, environmental awareness, and more. While these service projects have traditionally been focused in Sint Maarten, the restructure of AUC’s Student Government Association (SGA) earlier this year has helped expand Community Action Day initiatives to include clinical students based at several of AUC’s affiliated hospital sites across the US and UK.
In Sint Maarten, multiple student groups continued existing relationships with community organizations during Community Action Day. Members of AUC’s chapter of the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) volunteered to host children from the New Start Children’s Home for games and crafts on AUC’s campus, while Phi Chi students returned to Mullet Bay Beach for a cleanup and collected more than 175 pounds of trash as part of a joint effort with the Nature Foundation. Cleanup efforts also extended outside of Cupecoy, with a group of students joining the Youth Brigade in St. Peters as part of a collaboration with the St. Peters Community Center.
Other projects focused on restoring a playground with the Salvation Army, providing blood pressure and BMI screenings with the Heart and Stroke Foundation, creating a mural to promote wellness with the Black Medical Student Association and the Sint Maarten Association of Psychologists, and clearing the way for a greenhouse at Hillside Christian School with the Family Medicine Interest Group.
At clinical sites across the US and UK, students participated in a number of activities to benefit communities in the surrounding areas of their hospitals. Clinical students supported nonperishable food drives to benefit local food pantries in Bronx, NY; cleaned up the Northern Roots Nature Reserve in Oldham, UK; and led a fundraiser for the Jericho Partnership, which serves at-risk youth in Danbury, CT; among other activities.
Thank you to all of our students and colleagues for your dedication toward serving the communities in which we live, study, and work!