Williams Village community reaches out

(CU Independent/Ilana Finer)

Williams Village is now reaching out to the community through the newly formed “Willing to Volunteer-Williams Village,” referred to as “W2V” by volunteers.

The community service group formed this semester and now meets every Thursday at 7 p.m. in Stearns Central.

“People kept coming asking about community service for judicial sanctions, but when people started asking who just wanted to volunteer, I was really interested in that,” said Brittany Zart, a 21-year-old junior communication major and RA at  Stearns West.

The growing interest for more volunteer opportunities at Will Vill inspired hall directors and RAs, including Zart and Nicole Crepeau, the hall director of Stearns East, to hold a meeting last month, Zart said.

At the first meeting only one student, Anna-lisa Frazier, attended but since then the numbers have begun to grow, Zart said.  Frazier, a 17-year-old freshman psychology major said she brings experience from previously volunteering at a food bank to the group and is now one of the student leaders of W2V, hoping others will step up.

“I would love to see Williams Village get more students here and get involved,” Frazier said.

W2V kicked off with a winter clothing drive at the beginning of the semester called Warmer Will Vill and by the end of this week the group will tally the amount and deliver it to four different organizations, Crepeau said.

“We haven’t tallied it yet, but right now all the clothes fill three huge shelving units,” Crepeau said. “It was very successful.”

Currently, W2V is running a canned food drive and a Christmas donation for three families in Boulder, Crepeau said.

Students on campus said they think having a community service program at Williams Village is a good idea.

“It’s always good to have community service programs,” said Ben Chee, a 19-year-old junior accounting major. “It will be something the nicer students will be able to enjoy and it will be helpful for them.”

With the new program, the group hopes to change the negative reputation that Will Vill can appear to have and instead be labeled as the community service dorms.

“It’s a good label especially considering what [Williams Village] has been labeled in the past,” Zart said. “We want to make a positive impact on the community.”

Zart said that she has often heard Will Vill referred to as a “party dorm.”

“We think it is good to [be] doing something within our community that promotes a really positive image,” Zart said.

As the program continues to build and establish itself, the members look ahead to future plans. W2V’s biggest plan involves planning a Saturday once a month to volunteer at organizations in Boulder, Frazier said.

“Next semester we are going to try to set up a periodic trip once every few weeks, so people can get out and learn about the different volunteer places,” Frasier said. “What we are looking for is not a big commitment, maybe just a few hours on a Saturday. It’s so people can see the difference service makes, which is the main goal.”

Crepeau said she hopes that once the program is established more students from other parts of campus will join the group.

“We are trying to make it so that we get more people and the more people coming to Will Vill, the bigger the better,” Crepeau said.

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Rose Heaphy at [email protected].