CLA students, alumni and faculty pitched in Saturday to help beautify The Windom School in Minneapolis

By Kendall Moon/Murphy News Service

The University of Minnesota’s College of Liberal Arts held its first CLA Day of Service Saturday.

Volunteers worked on an overgrown green space in the front of The Windom School, a Spanish immersion school in Minneapolis.

“It’s a tangible way to show we’re connected to the community,” Amelious Whyte, CLA’s director of public engagement, said.

Whyte said when new CLA Dean John Coleman started came on-board in 2014, he said one of his goals was to have the college more connected to the community.

The Alumni Association hosted multiple service events across the nation Saturday.

CLA participated in this service day and broadened its volunteer-base beyond alumni to reach students, staff and faculty.

“I would love CLA to be known for their service whether it’s students, faculty or staff,” Whyte said.

The college reached out to Minneapolis Public Schools Volunteer Coordinator Kaylie Burns Gahagan, who became the liaison between the schools and the U.

Gahagan said they first planned to have workers at multiple sites, but struggled to recruit enough volunteers. More people signed up for the Windom School, so it made sense to concentrate the service there.

Shelley Schultz, an engineer for the Windom School, said the space the volunteers worked on needed help.

“[The space] used to be really pretty, but now it’s a real eyesore,” she said.

Volunteers pulled weeds from a roughly 20-square-foot area. And after laying landscape cloth, the workers poured and evened mulch throughout the area.

About 20 volunteers, which included U students, staff, faculty and alumni, showed up to work.

Kohlman Thompson, a theater arts major and member of fraternity Beta Chi Theta, said he got involved because he knew Whyte. When he saw the director post about the opportunity, he thought, “I’m not doing anything with my Saturday.”

After a couple of hours of work and volunteer labor, Whyte said he was pleased with their progress.

“We got done what we needed to get done, and we were done early … It looks great,” he said.

As for future days of CLA-sponsored service? Whyte said the college is still determining if the capacity is there to do it on a regular basis.

“This is the first time that CLA has done something like this … I think we can definitely build on it,” Whyte said.

Reporter Kendall Moon is studying journalism at the University of Minnesota.