UIC Day of Service

Students from Alpha Psi Lambda help clean Oak Street Beach. Photo: Roberta Dupuis-Devlin

More than 300 students, faculty and alumni came together Saturday to give back to the community during the 7th annual UIC Day of Service.

Students from Campus Housing volunteer at Gingko Organic Gardens. Photo: Roberta Dupuis-Devlin

Volunteers worked at 30 sites across the Chicago area, cleaning up beaches, framing a house, walking homeless animals and more.

At the El Paseo Community Garden in the Pilsen neighborhood, volunteers spread fertilizer, piled woodchips and pulled weeds to transform the unused railroad space into a garden.

Freshman Anne Zheng volunteered at the site to take a break from studying.

“My favorite part was looking at everyone work together to help the community,” she said.

Celina Diaz, a senior in biochemistry, also volunteered at the garden.

“Since I’m approaching graduation soon, I thought that it’s time to do something,” she said. “There are a lot of good people here. It was nice interacting with the community and the people around here.”

Antonio and Paula Acevedo are the garden leads at the El Paseo Garden. Antonio Acevedo said having UIC students participate on the project was beneficial.

“We got so much done in four hours that would have taken us multiple days to do. [The students] are very helpful,” he said.

Diaz plans to continue to serve her community.

“It felt good to do something and give back to the community and the people who are actually going to enjoy this place,” she said.