By Jeff Coltin

If Rose Hill is your new home, the Volunteer and Internship Fair is your welcoming neighbor. She bakes you cookies, tells you the hot spots in the area and pushes you to get involved with some groups in the community.

The Volunteer Fair was back again on Thursday, Sept. 18, as some 40 community partners set up along the west end of Edward’s Parade and vied for sign-ups from Fordham students.  The scene has been the same for years, but now it’s under a new brand: “Welcome (Back) to the Bronx.”

Bonato is a Social Justice Leader with the Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice (DDCSJ) at Rose Hill and was sitting behind the Center’s table at the fair.

“We thought that we would focus on the theme of Welcome Back to the Bronx so we could really highlight our community partners in the Bronx and show a sense of unity and solidarity with them,” said Angie Bonato, FCRH ’15. Beside the table stood a large map of the Bronx with photos of cultural sites around the borough from the Bronx Museum of the Arts to Orchard Beach. The table itself held smaller maps of where each of the community partners, the organizations who partner with the DDCSJ, was located in the Bronx.

Bonato and a partner passed out postcards reading: “THE BRONX.”

According to the DDCSJ, about 1,200 Rose Hill students are involved with volunteer work, more than one in six students on campus, even counting graduate students who may already have careers. The hours students commit to service varies from place to place — from less than two hours a week with groups like Strive for College to a couple full days a week with the New York Botanical Garden.

In front of rows of balloons representative of the Bronx’s borough flag — blue, white, or grey — the community partners tried to draw students to their tables. Some had fresh-baked cookies; others had flashy signs. At the Sisterms and Brothers United table, Geovanny Ayala handed students a small blue raquetball to throw.

“Youth in the Bronx are more likely to get into prison than get into college or a living wage job,” Ayala said.

On his tri-fold board was one large hole labeled “PRISON,” surrounded by much smaller holes, barely big enough for the ball to fit through, “COLLEGE” and “LIVING WAGE JOB.” Make or miss, Ayala would talk to students about how they can set an example for the Bronx youth by helping with Sisters and Brothers United’s college readiness program. Ayala would know about being a Bronx youth — the Bronxite has been with the group since high school and is now a student at BMCC. He said volunteering is a way for Fordham students to open their eyes.

“They should know the struggle that people who live here go through,” he said.  Because they do live here, so it is their struggle, sort of. Even though they’re just here for four years. And if they want to stay for longer, that’s great.”

Yarali Cruz, FCRH ’18, has been in the Bronx for much longer than four years, but she was still drawn in to play the ball game. Growing up in the West Farms section of the Bronx, she said Ayala’s message interested her.

“A whole bunch of people I know didn’t go to college and are in jail, and I’m just like ‘oh, I guess I’m the lucky one,’” she said. “It’d be nice to help other people not go to jail and go to college.”

Other students really do see volunteering as a way to get to know the Bronx.

“What better way to connect with the community than community service, you know?” said Brian Collins, FCRH ’18. “I’m a new student here; I live in North Jersey, a radically different place.”

Collins proved active at the volunteer fair, signing up to work with three community partners. He had taken the role of welcoming neighbor to heart.

“The best way to get to know the community, short of just wandering the streets and saying hi to everybody you meet,” Collins said, “is to join a volunteer program, meet a bunch of new people.”

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Jeff Coltin is the Bronx Correspondent for The Fordham Ram.