I first got involved with the Service Cluster Board through Page One Literacy, which organizes after school reading programs to promote literacy in the local community. Besides the semester that I went abroad to Moscow, I ended up volunteering with Page One for all 4 years. Each program is a semester long, so they’ve varied greatly depending on the school, age, and reading level of the students. Each program is also run by 2-3 student volunteers, allowing you to get to know other Middlebury students you might not have known otherwise. One of my favorite parts of Page One has definitely been revisiting favorite childhood authors such as Roald Dahl while picking out books for the program.

After serving on the board of Page One for 2 semesters, I learned about the SCB Coordinator position at the Center for Community Engagement. Being an SCB Coordinator has been entirely different from working with Page One, but what I’ve enjoyed most is getting to know students from other service orgs. and working in the CCE office. Everyone is extremely friendly, and there are so many more ways to organize service projects and receive funding than I could have imagined. I’ve been very lucky to work with the SCB co-coordinators that I have, because each one has been an amazing partner to work with in different ways. It’s encouraging to see so many students finding different needs to address in Middlebury and building relationships with community partners. I think if anything has changed in terms of my perspective on working with SCB in the past 4 years, it’s that I now see those community partnerships as just as, if not more, important than the service itself.

-Kristina Frye ’17