Media Releases

U of T students to participate in “alternative reading week”

February 12, 2010

Students will go to work in local priority neighbourhood

TORONTO, ON – On top of hit­ting the books this read­ing week, hun­dreds of UofT stu­dents will be hit­ting the streets in one of Toronto’s poor­est neigh­bour­hoods to help with key com­mu­ni­ty-build­ing projects.

More than 200 stu­dent vol­un­teers will team up with agen­cies in the West­on-Mount Den­nis area Feb­ru­ary 16 to 18, pitch­ing in on a wide range of projects designed to enhance com­mu­ni­ty ser­vices in this vibrant, mul­ti­cul­tur­al neigh­bour­hood. The stu­dents will help with dozens of crit­i­cal projects, rang­ing from build­ing a “town hall” gath­er­ing place for res­i­dents to plan­ning com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens and work­ing with area kids.

“This is a win-win sit­u­a­tion for all involved,” says Karen McCrank of UofT’s Cen­tre for Com­mu­ni­ty Part­ner­ships, who helped orga­nize the blitz with the Learn­ing Enrich­ment Foun­da­tion in the West­on-Mount Den­nis neigh­bour­hood. “Our stu­dents get to use their skills and ideas towards projects with mea­sur­able, real-world impact and the West­on-Mount Den­nis com­mu­ni­ty will cer­tain­ly feel a pos­i­tive rip­ple effect from those efforts.”

Fur­ther details on the spe­cif­ic projects can be found here: http://www.ccp.utoronto.ca/Students/Service-Projects-in-the-Community/Alternative-Reading-Week.htm

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For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact:
Karen McCrank
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Cen­tre for Com­mu­ni­ty Part­ner­ships
416–946-7103