Guest Blog: Service goes with Tulane, like Red Beans goes with Rice!

Happy New Year gang! Time for another guest blog. This time, you're hearing from one of my favorite students, Lea Bogner, the Jeff-proclaimed Ms. Tulane Community Service 2012. Take it away Lea...

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Here I am as the Easter Bunny for an
Egg Hunt in the Desire Neighborhood.  

Hi everyone! My name is Lea Bogner and I am a senior at Tulane, majoring in International Relations and International Development. I'm also the Chair of the Community Action Council of Tulane University Students (CACTUS) and a Community Service Scholar. Since the deadline for the Community Service Scholarship is rapidly approaching, I decided to hijack Jeff's blog to tell you all about service at Tulane.

When you apply for the Community Service Scholarship, you're not only applying for more scholarship, but to become a member of the Scholars community. The Scholars are a tight knit community that works hard to go above and beyond our 50 service hour commitment per semester and create new, innovative service programs across New Orleans. We have retreats, and "families" that we meet with throughout the year to have dinner, work on programming and just have some fun!

All of our Scholars, and hundreds of other Tulane students, are members of CACTUS. CACTUS is the umbrella organization for over 30 service organizations on campus. We have tutoring groups, mentoring programs, groups that visit nursing homes, groups that run gardens in the Lower Ninth Ward, groups that travel to Honduras, Nicaragua, South Africa... and groups that do even more! You can see a list and descriptions of all of our organizations here and here.

Our programs work daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. The Tulane University Community Advancement Network (TUCAN) goes to the NFL YET center everyday to tutor and mentor. Science Club spends every Friday doing Science Experiments at Ben Franklin Elementary while the Athletic Program coaches at a local park.

Senior, Mississippi native and Political Science major, Marshall Cox plays with students  as part of the Athletic Program.

During the year, CACTUS brings campus organizations and Service-Learning classes together to host a "carnival" for 300 local kids on campus.  Organizations like Undergraduate Student Government, the Green Wave Ambassadors (our tour guides!) the Tulane Emergency Medical Services and even the Board Games Club set up booths for students to play games and make crafts. This year's Halloween Day was terrifyingly successful with organizations, TIDES classes, and dorms participating. The Paterson House hosted trick or treaters with LOTS of candy and decorated hallways.

Freshman, Vermont Native, and tour guide, John Crowley poses with some  2nd graders from  Success Prep. John's Leadership TIDES class had a "potion making table". The course's instructor, Dean MacLaren, "borrowed" liquid nitrogen to be added to Kool Aid to make a spooky treat!

Here I am after the Mummy wrap and trick or treating with Jamie from Success Prep!

Twice a year we have two HUGE service events: Outreach Tulane and the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. Outreach Tulane hosts over 1000 Tulane students at 30 sites across the city and kicks off our semester of service work, educating student and faculty volunteers about the different New Orleans neighborhoods. It is a totally student run event: we work with the organizations to develop the projects, we do the fundraising and we even do the art work for the t-shirts! It's a huge part of the Tulane expereince and a great way for freshmen to learn about the city. As I quoted from the movie "Mean Girls" to this freshmen class during my speech at New Student Welcome, "it's social suicide if you don't do Outreach".

Here I am with one of the 4 pallets of supplies necessary for Outreach!

Here is a group working with Youth Rebuilding New Orleans. YRNO's executive board member is a Tulane Alumn. Class of 2011! And who is the guy giving me bunny ears in this picture? Just Dean MacLaren-- Dean of the Undergraduate College. Even our administrators do service!

The MLK Day of Service is our service day at the beginning of spring semester. It has us teaming up with Loyola, Xavier and Dillard, "making a day off, a day on". It's a great way to make new friends at the other universities.

As a future Tulane student, you'll learn that there is no place quite like the Big Easy. We work to honor, give back and learn about our great city with every service project that we do. It's not about getting a project done and moving on-- it's about learning about New Orleans' rich culture and history and creating real lasting relationships with the people and communities we work with.

As our CACTUS motto goes, "We do it for our school. We do it for our community. We do it for the love of New Orleans".


Good luck on your applications and thanks for reading!

Jermyra and I as part of the tutoring program through CACTUS'
Tulane University Community Advancement Network (TUCAN)