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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.

Rebuilding Together is the largest national volunteer home rehabilitation organization in the United States. The local branch, Rebuilding Together Mohawk Valley (RTMV), has been assisting the elderly, physically and mentally disabled, and working poor in the local area since 1997.  Nick Solano ’14 began working with RTMV during his sophomore year and was recently appointed executive director of the local organization.

Eight members of the class of 2016 are getting the chance to change the world for the better as Community Outreach and Opportunity Program (COOP) Service Interns.  The students, all of whom  had outstanding service records while in high school, become interns for local nonprofits during their first two years on the Hill.

On Oct. 4, members of the Hamilton community gathered to learn about social innovation and careers in social entrepreneurship through a panel discussion sponsored by the Levitt Center, the Career Center, and the COOP.

A pizza party and meet and greet was held at the Tolles Pavilion on Oct. 2 for participants in Hamilton’s new “Sidekicks” program.  Sidekicks is a program that pairs Hamilton College students with Clinton elementary school students in grades 1 - 4 in order to establish a long term mentoring relationship between the Hamilton student, his or her sidekick, and the sidekick’s family.

Several members of the Hamilton community read to students at Kernan Elementary School in Utica on Dec. 16 as part of a Community Readers’ Day hosted by the school.

The men and women of Hamilton’s CSI team have some of the most specialized and important skills on campus. They’re not crime scene investigators, though—CSI stands for COOP Service Intern, one of the many service opportunities offered by Hamilton’s Community Opportunity and Outreach Project (COOP). Each year, a half-dozen first-year students join this selective program, which is focused on matching a student with a local non-profit agency for an extended four-semester internship.

Anyone who has participated in one of Hamilton Association for Volunteering Outreach and Charity (HAVOC) days of service knows that the adage “the early bird catches the worm” readily applies to the sign-up process. By 10:45 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 10, volunteers had already begun lining up at tables in the Fillius Events Barn, eager to match themselves with the sites of their choices for HAVOC’s annual Make a Difference Day.