UMDNJ Students Offer Up Their Volunteer Services

Most organizations desperate for volunteers usually have trouble finding enough willing hands, but students at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) have a different dilemma—they want to volunteer, now they just need to pair with organizations in need.

Students at the UMDNJ’s Stratford campus are seeking organizations that need extra help on Martin Luther King Day, also known as the MLK Day of Service. Volunteers fan out across the nation annually on MLK Day in honor of King’s legacy.

“Last year, we had 75-80 volunteers, but not enough locations,” said Yvette Alvarez, a graduate student in public health and biomedical sciences who is helping organize the volunteer day. “In some locations we had so many people there we were falling over each other.”

UMDNJ knows organizations are out there in need of help. So this year, the volunteer coordinators are getting a head start on connecting with groups to maximize UMDNJ-Stratford’s efforts.

Alvarez expects a similar number of volunteers on this year’s day of service, Jan. 16, 2012.

“This is a way for us to give back to the community and it helps students become more familiar with the communities near the campus,” Alvarez said. “In some cases, students want to volunteer year-round, but don’t really know what organizations are out there in need of volunteers or how to go about finding them.”

Although the volunteer group has a medical bent—the Stratford campus includes medical, nursing and public health schools—Alvarez said potential volunteer projects don’t necessarily need a medical angle. During the school’s first organized MLK Day of Service in 2010, volunteers served at a soup kitchen, veterans’ organization, nursing home, homeless outreach group and juvenile detention center, among others.

But, if organizations are interested on capitalizing on UMDNJ’s expertise, Alvarez said volunteers stand ready.

“Last year we provided glucose, cholesterol and blood pressure screenings,” she noted. “Our volunteers are all graduate-level students or faculty and staff members from the Stratford campus, not undergraduates.”

In need of volunteers for your MLK Day project? UMDNJ organizers need the following information:

• Name and address of your organization (include your website, if applicable)
• Contact person and phone number and/or email address
• Time of day when your organizations needs volunteers on Jan. 16
• Number of volunteers needed
• Brief description of what volunteers will be asked to do that day

Send the information to Dr. Bernadette West at westbm@umdnj.edu or in care of West at UMDNJ-School of Public Health, University Educational Center, Room 2034, 40 East Laurel Rd., Stratford, NJ 08854.