fbpx Students Circle the City with Love Through the Lens of Service Immersion | Chestnut Hill College Skip to content Skip to navigation
Menu

Students Circle the City with Love Through the Lens of Service Immersion

Students Circle the City with Love Through the Lens of Service Immersion

This article was originally printed in the Chestnut Hill College Fall/Winter 2022 Magazine. To read more stories from this issue and to download a copy of the magazine, click here.

Written in multiple languages across the ceiling of Chestnut Hill College's McCaffrey Lounge is the phrase “Circle the city with love.” This sentiment was practiced by CHC’s founders, the Sisters of Saint Joseph, and remains a cornerstone of the College's mission.

One way the College uses that phrase to meet its mission is the Leaders ENgaged in Service program, or LENS, a four-day community service immersion that encourages its student volunteers to embody the principle of circling the city with love. The LENS program relaunched last August, following several years of hiatus due to the pandemic.

Four days, four locations

Philadelphia, with all its vibrancy and grit, still has plenty of areas for improvement for its citizens. People experience hunger and homeless. Excessive litter often mires both the city's green spaces and charming city blocks. These hardships are evident within Chestnut Hill College's figurative backyard—the neighborhoods and natural landmarks surrounding its quaint and lively campus

The 2022 LENS program saw 16 Chestnut Hill College volunteers split among four sites, supervised by student leaders and faculty members. The 2022 LENS service sites included Sisters of Saint Joseph Welcome Center in Kensington, Saint Joan of Arc Parish in Kensington, Wissahickon Park near Chestnut Hill College, and Face to Face, which operates its food bank and community kitchen out of St. Vincent DePaul Catholic Church in Germantown.

LENS serves a secondary purpose for its students: introducing new freshmen and transfers to Philadelphia through volunteering in the city.

Jeron Cole, a Philadelphia native and freshman at Chestnut Hill College, prepared hot meals and handed out water in Germantown for LENS. The experience reminded Cole of his very first impression of homelessness in Philadelphia, when as a child, he saw people living in tents near a train station in Germantown, where he grew up.

“That made me suffer inside knowing that all those people inside those tents did not have a home and had to sleep in the cold,” Cole said. 

Since then, Cole said he is inspired to help others whenever he can. He feels strongly aligned with the College’s humanitarian principles, and is excited for his fall classes.

“With the volunteering, I've gotten to see smiles I've never seen before,” Cole said. 

In addition to the volunteer portion of LENS, students attend interactive workshops with Chestnut Hill College professors. Dr. Ryan Murphy of the Sociology Department led a workshop on income equality in Philadelphia. The other workshop dealt with restorative justice, led by Dr. Tricia Way, who teaches a course on that subject.

“Dr. Murphy's workshop really opened my eyes to how a $1 difference can really change a person’s life,” said Xiomara Nieves, a junior majoring in forensic biology. “Dr. Way’s workshop brought up different social justice issues, and how we can shed more light on them.”

Having grown up in Northwest Philadelphia, LENS student leader Hafsah Abdul-Malik said she feels passionately about food scarcity in the city. The issue isn't just a shortage of food, but also the quality and diversity of nutritious meals. Abdul-Malik described some neighborhoods in Philadelphia as a “food desert,” with few grocery stores within walking distance that offer fresh fruits and vegetables. This is a challenge for the elderly and people with limited transportation options.

“I've seen so many food banks open and close, especially during the pandemic,” she said.

Abdul-Malik and her group of students assembled bags of food to hand out at Saint Joan of Arc Parish in Kensington where they tended its community garden, which supplies free fruits and vegetables to the neighborhood. The Parish's food bank and community outreach program is run by one woman, Sister Linda Lukiewski. 

“Sister Linda was a huge inspiration, because she embodies what it means to be a community leader,” Abdul-Malik said. “Without volunteers, without regular help from people outside of the church, there wouldn't be a food bank, and there wouldn't be a community garden with beautiful fruits and vegetables for people to come get for free.”

“Dear Neighbor”

Another core value the LENS immersion stresses is the concept of “Dear Neighbor.” It's the simple act of extending kindness to those with whom Chestnut Hill College shares a community.

“'Dear Neighbor' to me means to help those in need without being asked,” said Nieves. “It’s to be the friendly face people need when they’re in a rough patch.”

For Rebecca Hyde, a campus assistant at Chestnut Hill College who helped program the community outreach for LENS, “Dear Neighbor” is more than just a phrase. It's an action.

“It goes beyond encompassing buzzwords like forgiveness, sharing, and compassion, and acts on every single one of them,” Hyde said. “The 'Dear Neighbor' is a call to action on injustices, to help the vulnerable and marginalized, and connect with the communities and world around us.”

Hyde was an English Literature major at Chestnut Hill College before she joined the staff.

“When I first toured CHC as a high school student, I instantly felt at home,” Hyde said. “The community aspect is why I am still here today.”

Director of Campus Ministry Anna Ryan-Bender coordinated this year's LENS service immersion—and shuttled its students around in a van during the trip. The LENS itinerary included visits to community hubs in the neighborhoods they served, like Uncle Bobbie’s in Germantown, a Black-owned coffee shop and bookstore. Embedded in the service programming of LENS, Ryan-Bender said, is the intention to empower its students to feel comfortable venturing out in the city, even if that means just taking the subway or a bus to a new stop.

“We think about planning LENS in terms of how this experience expands students’ understanding of the city of Philadelphia, in all of its beauty and brokenness, and helps them to feel like we're all responsible for one another,” Ryan-Bender said. “They also walk away with a comfort level in traveling around to different areas of the city.”

Jeron Cole said he gained a sense of belonging at CHC’s Campus through the 2022 LENS program.

“It's hard for me to actually describe how friendly the campus is,” said Cole, who currently commutes to school. “But it's enough that I am moving into a dormitory next year.”

- Jimmy Viola

 

Posted In: Features