Pioneer Pitch-In: Area Non-Profits Receive Assistance from New Utica Students

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Pioneer Pitch-In: Area Non-Profits Receive Assistance from New Utica Students

Executive Director of the Utica Zoo Andria De Lisle-Heath guides Utica College students through work at the Utica Zoo as part of Pioneer Pitch-In.

The goals of the program are to help the new Utica students get to know their new community, experience the joy of volunteering, and get to know each other.

More than 400 new Utica students went out into the community as part of the first annual “Pioneer Pitch-In” to benefit more than two dozen local non-profits, as well as the students, organizers say.

Utica College students stand outside the Uptown Theatre for Creative Arts where they volunteered as part of Pioneer Pitch-In.

The students, who moved into the residence halls earlier in the week, had been attending orientation events throughout the week. One new event, the Pioneer Pitch-In, matches students with institutional mentors, divides them into small groups, and sends them out into the community.

The non-profits were selected based on organizations where Utica faculty and staff members already volunteer, and needed assistance that Utica students could provide.

You could find Utica students painting fences, benches and trying their hand at landscaping at The Utica Zoo, while others set up for this weekend’s bazaar at Notre Dame Elementary School. They also landscaped various properties for The Rescue Mission of Utica, and assisted with a music class for children at Grace Church.

Students help catalog and organize artifacts at the Oneida County History Center as part of Pioneer Pitch-In.

The goals of the program are to help the new Utica students get to know their new community, experience the joy of volunteering, and get to know each other.

The sites included, in addition to those already mentioned: CNY Conservancy, MVCAA, Rotary Club of Utica, Apple Tree Preschool at Trinity United Methodist Church, House of the Good Shepherd, Handshake City, Sculpture Space, The Parkway Center, Bakhita Community of St. Francis de Sales, Alzheimer’s Association, Mohawk Valley Challengers, UC DPT program, ICAN, Empowered Pathways, Oneida County History Center, UTCA, The Kelberman Center, On Point for College, Safe Schools Mohawk Valley, Morrow Warming Center, Thea Bowman House, Johnson Park Center, The Center, Little Falls Library, The Root Farm and UCP.