Howard University Day of Service (HUDOS), a 2013-established annual service-learning event serving the DC metropolitan area and modeled after the University's nationally recognized Alternative Spring Break (ASB) program, expanded this year to include sites focused on police and community relations.  The event regularly provides opportunities as a part of the students’ introductory experience to the University, which took place this year on August 19.

According to HUDOS Public Relations Coordinator and senior Public Relations major Na’ima Jenkins, the new initiative is a sign of the program’s ability to address issues currently facing DC communities and the country at large.  The Trenton, New Jersey native said the HUDOS program has not only grown in its initiatives, but in the involvement of a greater mix of the Howard community as volunteers.

“My freshman year, there were a lot of freshmen involved and there weren’t a lot of upperclassmen," said Jenkins. "I feel like this has grown to become a Howard University tradition, not just a freshman tradition, not just an incoming student tradition.”

About 600 incoming and current students served at more than 40 service sites across the city during HUDOS 2016. 

“It is exciting to once again introduce our incoming students to Howard University’s great tradition of service,” said Office of the Dean of the Chapel Dean Dr. Rev. Bernard Richardson.

Groups of 10 to 12 volunteer students, faculty, staff, administrators and alumni participated per site.  Returning HUDOS initiatives included: education, environmental services, HIV/AIDS awareness, homelessness and poverty, violence, and voter registration. 

“I have an affinity, especially for the HIV/AIDS initiative,” said Jenkins, “because I feel like that’s something really affecting the DC community, as well as the African-American community.  So, I think it’s our duty, our responsibility, as young African-American millennials to kind of help get all tiers aware and active and taking precautions against HIV and AIDS and also educate people.”

Jenkins said she also appreciates the alternate way HUDOS’s focus on environmental services can address quality of health.

“I was just reading an article where there’s a correlation between African Americans who develop asthma and where they live and where they’re from, like inner cities where we don’t really pay attention to the environment” said Jenkins.

Typically including a period of reflection to close the event, in addition to the opening ceremony and work-site volunteering, the program’s growth is also of an individual and transformative nature.

“It’s only a week, a really short amount of time, but it’s amazing what you can learn about yourself,” said senior HUDOS Executive Student Director and Accounting major Lyric Clark, of New York City.

For Clark, in combination with her experience in HU ASB, HUDOS changed her career trajectory.

“I was going to a firm after graduating,” said Clark, “but [now], I plan on teaching […] probably teach Math or something like that.” 

This year’s sites included Tubman Elementary School, the Father McKenna Center, the Emergence Community Arts Collective, and the Homeless Children’s Playtime Project, among others.

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(Photo by Justin Knight, Staff Photographer, Office of University Communications)