Students pitch in at PMADD

Dust, nails and shattered roof shale flew around inside the dingy house in East Liberty as a group of Pitt students worked furiously to rebuild the house for a needy family.

The volunteers worked to fix up the old house so someone would be able to buy it in better condition. The home will soon belong to a single mother and her family, who cannot afford the rent of the house in its current state, 22-year-old Taylor Thorp said.

Thorp, the development director for the nonprofit called The Best of the Batch Foundation, works with Pittsburgh Urban Leadership Service Experience, which coordinated many of the projects for Pitt Make a Difference Day. About 20 Pitt students from Tower A helped repair the dilapidated house.

On Saturday, Oct. 24, 5,071 Pitt students crawled out of bed and boarded more than 70 school buses at 9 a.m., for the ninth annual PMADD. This year, 5,200 students registered for PMADD — the highest number of students since the event began in 2006, according to Rachel Lauver, community outreach chair for Student Government Board. The volunteers spread out around the Pittsburgh area with at least one group in each of the 11 districts to pick up trash, pull weeds, wash buildings and package supplies for organization events.

“The purpose of PMADD is that it gives Pitt students the opportunity to give back to the community that they call home,” Lauver said in an email.

“We have monthly service projects, but PMADD is a great way to celebrate our university’s core value of community service as a collective student body.”

Pitt’s Student Government Board collaborated with PittServes to coordinate the University’s biggest service day of the year. PittServes runs this with a mission of “[promoting] a community of compassion, service, and wellbeing [sic] for our neighbors and ourselves so we can thrive as one,” according to the PittServes website.

East Liberty was just one of the many volunteer locations that this event offered. Among the others were Hazelwood, Collier Township, Wilmerding Borough and North Versailles Township.

At this East Liberty home, students kept busy by lifting loose planks from the floor, digging a hole for a future pipeline and removing broken roof pieces. By 1 p.m., the previously empty, huge dumpster was filled to its brim with wooden pieces and other waste from the home.

Julie Williston, an undeclared freshmen, spent the day in the attic collecting discarded roof shingles.

“Even though we were just cleaning up shingles, in the long run, the work that we did helped reduce the hours that would have been put in by just a few people,” Williston said. “Just knowing that what we were doing was helping a family in need really made it worth it.”

For Thorp, the enjoyment came from working alongside the students.

“This is my first time working with Pitt students, and it’s really nice to see how much they all want to engage in their community,” said Thorp.

All around the city, several PMADD participants scoured the streets to pick up trash in efforts to beautify the communities.

“I feel like my residents are more bonded after this experience because they got to hang out with their friends in a different context,” junior psychology and communications major and Resident Assistant Kara Boutselis said. Most of Boutselis’ Tower A residents attended PMADD and helped pick up trash in East Liberty Saturday.

Freshman engineering student Zach Lynn said when he picked up trash in the neighborhood of Sharpsburg, Pittsburgh residents drove by, honking their horns and waving in appreciation of the volunteers. For Lynn, it was gratifying to feel like people in the neighborhood noticed what they were doing.

Many of the freshmen had not gotten the chance to explore much of Pittsburgh outside of Oakland, said Jill Weiss, a Pitt Student Health Center nurse who chaperoned the East Liberty groups.

“This was my first time attending PMADD, and I loved getting to know everyone. I think [this event] makes Pitt known in the greater Pittsburgh community and gives back to those who need it,” she said.

For Lynn, the chance to bond with the community is just as important as the impact the service makes.

“It’s so important to help the people that live so close to our school,” Boutselis said. “It’s really nice to give back and be appreciated for doing so.”