Community Corner
Viewfinder: A Time to Connect and a Time to Give Back
9/11 proved to be a day to give back to the community for an Attleboro college student.
Taking time to help others was the focus of many on 9/11. Many took the time to give an hour or two, but for a group of college students this was more than just a single opportunity.
Every year the Wheaton College students give back to the local communities especially for the 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance.
Wheaton students and staff, worked with 12 agencies, including five area Head Start facilities, Special Olympics, the /, the ARC of Northern Bristol County and Crystal Spring Earth Learning Center.
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The students had an opportunity to sign up for any of the scheduled events, but for one student there was a place that she knew that help was needed and she was the one who was able to connect these two communities. Pagna Eam, immigrated to the United States when she was just 16 and found herself in the Cambodian community of Attleboro. She saw firsthand what The was able to do for her sister who graduated from the program with her GED, and now Eam had an opportunity to give back.
She coordinated her fellow students to join her in volunteering in her new hometown. She came with not only 7 other students to paint the library in The Literacy Center, but brought along Betty Neil Crutcher, the wife of the president of Wheaton College.
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Crutcher was quick to explain that "all the credit for this project lay on the shoulders of Pagna" and that "she was just acting as an adviser." The students and Crutcher took turns painting the , handing out free books, playing period games and giving the library in The Literacy Center a fresh coat of paint.
Eam feels connected to both communities of which she has become a part of. "It takes just one person to connect to another then one family to another then one town to another," she said. "I can be that person who connects the Literacy Center to Wheaton College, each has so much to offer to the other".
According to the center's Director Joan Ricci, it took the students just four hours to transform the pealing paint to a bright an inviting library area for the students.
Ricci said she hoped that more students from the college would take an opportunity to help out in other ways in the future. As Eam wanted to pay it forward for the impact that the center had on her family, she now passes it off to our readers to make a difference.