In the
middle of February, Dartmouth
student-athletes partnered with the Tucker Foundation, the main community
service organization on the Dartmouth Campus. The Tucker Foundation was kind
enough to have a unique informational session solely for Dartmouth Athletes who
are wishing to pursue community service opportunities in their terms away from Dartmouth. The meeting
attracted the attention of many Dartmouth
athletes as over 20 student-athletes attended with several others receiving the
information discussed at the meeting through email. The Tucker Staff provided information
to student-athletes on how to apply for grants and pursue community service
opportunities both domestically and abroad. The informational meeting convinced
David Shrubb, a junior on the Men's Squash team, to set up a personal meeting
with Tucker staff to discuss how he can go about achieving funding for an
opportunity that he is pursuing this summer. Shrubb is going to work for City
Squash, a non-profit organization based in the Bronx at FordhamUniversity
that serves 100 elementary, middle, and high-school students. He is really
happy that he was able to learn how to get funding to cover his expenses this
summer so that he can work for City Squash. He said that he will be working to
help “kids get squash-based scholarships into independent high schools so that
it can increase the likelihood of going to college.” Shrubb praised the Tucker
Foundation for their sincerity and advisement on this great service
opportunity.
Andrea
Imhof, a sophomore on the Women's Cross Country and Track and Field teams,
learned a lot through the information that Tuck provided her. Though she is
still unsure about what community service program to pursue, she said “I'm
actually hoping to apply for Tucker funding for an off-term either next fall or
winter.” Similarly, Carley Markovitz learned a lot from the Tucker Information
Session but is still unsure whether she is going to apply. Like Shrubb,
Markovitz was able to have an informational meeting with a senior fellow at
Tucker who helped guide her on her service desires. She said, “I'm looking into
going to Peru,
but haven't applied yet.”Imhof and
Markovitz both seem very interested in community service but their ability to
travel to certain regions of the world and pursue certain opportunities depends
upon the Tucker Foundation's approval for the program and the amount that they
are willing to grant each student-athlete. The informational meeting was thus
very helpful in not only helping students learn about various programs, both
domestically and internationally, but also in helping them realize the money
available to use for community service opportunities.
These three
student-athletes are just a few of the many student-athletes on campus who have
been in touch with Tucker about community service programs. Hopefully, more Dartmouth athletes will
pursue service opportunities and use Tucker as a resource.
