Community Assistant training inspires CAs to be role models for their Saints by putting the Franciscan and Siena value of compassionate leadership into action.
CA Service Day was an annual tradition and a highlight of CA training before the off-campus service was suspended during the pandemic. This year, the Office of Community Living revived Service Day, and 73 Saints (seven professional staff and 66 CAs) spread out over five sites in the Capital Region:
Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York
Saints sorted and organized goods for the food bank, specifically sorting all their beverages.
Albany Barn
Saints cleaned the venue and created decorations for their upcoming gala. They created art kits for local children in the community.
Capital Roots
Saints mulched garden beds, planted vegetables, weeded the garden beds, and laid concrete to hold wooden posts in place to prevent traffic from hitting the garden beds.
Mohawk Hudson Humane Society
Saints sorted through multiple bags of recycling to organize the cans and bottles into like groupings in order raise money directly for the animals.
St. Bernardine of Siena Friary
Saints worked with our friars to help clean up and harvest the Friary garden. The CAs laid mulch, built a compost bin, and weeded the garden.
"I volunteered at Capital Roots in Troy, an organization dedicated to providing healthy foods, garden spaces, and education for the local community. In the past two years as a CA, there was never a chance to follow through on our Franciscan values and give back to the larger community that we do not directly serve.
We always focused on how to best support our residents, ourselves, and ultimately the Siena community, however, it was made very clear at the start of CA training this year that we would do more. I was very impressed that those responsible for organizing CA training not only built this into the schedule but also put a lot of emphasis on how our work as CAs goes beyond our hallways or buildings and into the real world.
I thought it was incredibly rewarding to see how the hard work of the Capital Roots group transformed the space. Teaming up to either fill wheelbarrows with mulch, spread the mulch, plant crops, or fill holes with cement showed me how powerful the word "collaboration" really is. It was also really special to spend quality time with CAs not on my staff and get to know them more on a personal level rather than a professional one.
I feel very inspired now to bring this mission of service to my swim team here at Siena. I think my teammates would benefit from getting involved with the community through service and seeing how much impact they truly carry as individuals and as a team just like my Community Living family did."
Audrey Shultz '24, community assistant