Fordham undergraduate students joined staff from the Center for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL) and volunteers from Catholic Charities, Bestcare Homecare, Astor Services, and other Bronx partners for a turkey-and-trimmings giveaway in the Highbridge neighborhood of the Bronx.
Students served food, distributed produce from a local Hudson Valley farm, and helped provide additional items for families at the Nov. 19 event. Afterward, the Fordham volunteers joined seniors at the Antonia Diaz Apartments for a community Thanksgiving dinner filled with dancing, singing, and even a surprise birthday celebration.
Maggie Murphy, a first-year student, said the events were “personal and intimate, and the dancing afterward made me feel even closer to everyone there. I had never experienced anything like it, and somehow, even though I had just met them, I felt truly connected.”
The giveaway event was held at the Highbridge Farmers Market site, where students in Ecology and Economics of Food Systems, a community-engaged learning course taught by Dawn Fariello, Ph.D. (biology) and Andrew Simons, Ph.D. (economics), have volunteered each Wednesday morning for the past four years, helping to distribute fresh produce to local residents.
The festivities were also connected to Urban Plunge 360, launched earlier this year by CCEL to extend the spirit of Fordham’s pre-orientation Urban Plunge across the academic year through community partnerships in the Bronx and Manhattan.
Photos by Kujegi Camara
