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Since it started in 2011, the Community Outreach and Opportunity Project, or COOP, has been buzzing with activity. It’s a win-win relationship. Hamilton students want to help their neighbors and effect positive change; and their neighbors, in the greater Mohawk Valley, provide numerous opportunities for activities like tutoring, working in soup kitchens or building houses, to name a few. In fact, the number of interactions with local organizations has grown annually, requiring the COOP to increase the number of it senior fellows.

Many Americans might find the Affordable Care Act difficult to understand, and some may feel daunted by the task of enrolling in health insurance under the new law, but a group of Hamilton College students is helping make the process easier for the surrounding community.

As the first semester of their two-year tenures wind down, eight COOP Service Interns can look back in pride. They look forward with even greater excitement.

Hamilton’s Alternative Spring Break (ASB) group in Virginia helped build a Habitat for Humanity house during the first week of spring break, March 16-23. The Hamilton students worked with Hanover Habitat for Humanity in Mechanicsville, where they helped build a house for a family in need.

The Community Outreach and Opportunity Project (COOP) is teaming up with Hamilton’s Physical Plant staff and Greek Philanthropy Union to provide 125 hams for Country Pantry, Clark Mills’ soup kitchen. The hams will feed 165 families on Easter.

While many of their counterparts hit beaches and ski slopes 102 Hamilton students are spending a week of their spring break volunteering at one of 10 nonprofit organizations for Alternative Spring Break (ASB), March 16-31.

Look at campus e-mail on any given day during Hamilton’s academic year and chances are there’s a service opportunity seeking volunteers. The people behind these numerous events are the Community Outreach and Opportunities Program (COOP) Senior Fellows – Danielle Lashley, Ramya Ramnath and Amy Soenksen. They coordinate volunteer requests with local non-profits, plan events and organize volunteers.

Hamilton students involved with the Community Outreach and Opportunity Program (COOP)’s service internship program gathered with their sponsors for a breakfast on Feb. 12 at COOP offices in the Chapel. The COOP Service Internship (CSI) program provides paid internships for service experience in a local nonprofit office over the student’s first four semesters.

In what has become an annual tradition, Hamilton Association for Volunteering Outreach and Charity (HAVOC) and Community Opportunity and Outreach Project (COOP) collected food, gifts and other items to make the holidays a bit happier for some local families in need.

Members of the men’s lacrosse team spent the week after Thanksgiving volunteering in the Hamilton Against Hunger program. All of Hamilton’s athletic teams take turns collecting leftover food from the McEwen dining hall to donate to the Utica Rescue Mission.