On October 14, Sigma Lambda Upsilon / Seņoritas Latinas Unidas Sorority Inc. participated in New York Cares Day 2000. NY Cares Day is a full day of community service focused entirely on New York City’s public schools. Teams of volunteers cleaned, painted, and refurbished 110 public schools throughout the city. This event happens every year and is sponsored by NY CARES, a non-profit organization that unites caring New Yorkers to help people in need and improve NYC through volunteer service and creative giving.

Sigma Lambda Upsilon was assigned to PS 15Q - Jackie Robinson School in Queens. After a bumpy yellow bus ride from Manhattan to the school in Queens, we all felt like elementary school children and were ready to do some work. PS 15Q is a kindergarten through fifth grade school which, upon first glance, seemed like it needed no major work. However when the team arrived at our assigned location, the school library, we quickly realized we had a full day ahead of us. As all 14 of us squeezed into the library, the librarian quickly began to run down her list of things that the team was to accomplish. We just didn’t know where to begin; the books were vertical, horizontal and diagonal on the shelves, there was not much working room, and we were afraid to disturb what little shred of order was already in place.

As members of the team took their positions in front of various shelves, heaved a sigh, and began pulling down books and examining both their content and quantity of dust, a workflow soon fell into place. Different topic sections were set up to categorize the books and old books began collecting on the floor outside the library. It was quite interesting seeing books from 1950-2000 all intermingled on the shelves. Above the shouts of "who has the American History section?" and "where is astronomy?", I tried to take some photos of the group working hard.

By the end of the day, the library was thoroughly organized and labeled, from A to Z. And although the Dewey Decimal System was thrown completely out the window, we created a library that was easy for the students to use. Our benefits were not only the satisfaction of a job well done, but some volunteers were able to have the old books of their choosing. I did see a Felix the Cat book tucked under someone’s arm!

Special thanks to Lambda Alpha Upsilon Fraternity Inc. and Phi Iota Alpha Fraternity Inc. who participated on the Sigma Lambda Upsilon team. Without you the successes of the day would not have been possible. 

For more information on NY CARES projects and events, please visit www.ny.cares.org.

Danielle Knatz
Director of Public Relations and Community Service
Theta-Alpha Graduate Professional Chapter
Sigma Lambda Upsilon / Seņoritas Latinas Unidas Sorority