Approximately 300 volunteers helped fix up East Boston’s Urbana-Barnes Middle School when a citywide City Year coalition held its 14th Annual “Serve-a-thon” Saturday.
The school, which enrolls more than 1,000 students in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades, received new coats of paint inside the major entrances and in the auditorium. Volunteers, who ranged from teenagers to adult businessmen, also helped alter a performance stage in the auditorium to increase the room’s capacity.
Outside, volunteers braved the driving rains, taking care of minor landscaping improvements in front of the school.
The Serve-a-thon is a revenue-generating method for City Year, a coalition founded in Boston in 1988, which “seeks to demonstrate, improve and promote the concept of national service as a means of building a stronger democracy.” Full-time volunteers between the ages of 17 and 24 donate one year their time to improving their community.
As with many fundraisers, volunteers were asked to get pledges from friends and family. Unlike other walks and marathons for charity, however, those who participated in the event were not asked to walk five kilometers, but instead to spend a day giving back to their community.
“I think this is pretty cool; I think it’s a good thing to do,” said Anne Laurens, a local businesswoman, as she painted a gray concrete wall bright blue. Laurens was one of many volunteers from the Needham-based PTC software company. The company’s employees volunteer with City Year twice a year, in addition to donating educational software to public schools such as Urbana-Barnes.
Carol Germina and her seven-year-old son, Nate. also came down to give a hand. Germina’s company, MFS Investment Management, sponsors the event.
Nate, Germina said, has been attending these kinds of community service events “since he was six months old. I usually carried him on my back,” she said. “[The Serve-a-thon] is just a great way to give back to the community, especially with the kids, too, and show them that helping out is very, very important.”
Principal Ed Cook also volunteered his time. He said he is grateful for City Year’s presence and that the group’s efforts strengthen every year.
“When I came to the school, City Year had already had a year of partnership here,” Cook said. “Since then we have grown the partnership each year. Last year we had a team come to the school who did some work in the classrooms. This year, the team [of volunteer teachers] is stationed here and is working in the classrooms and they’re working the after-school programs.”
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