In the Community

More than 3,000 Harvard students take to the streets with the 17th annual Arts First celebration, one of the nation’s largest university arts festivals. More than 225 music, theater, dance, film, and visual arts events comprise the four-day extravaganza, which takes place April 30-May 3 across the Harvard campus.

While joggers and strollers streamed merrily along sunny Memorial Drive on Saturday (April 25), Robert M. “Rob” Gogan Jr. was just a few yards away, bobbing in a kayak while combing the banks of the Charles River for litter.

In 1989, Nancy Oriol, now the dean for students at Harvard Medical School (HMS), had a vision: to establish a program that could provide basic health services to individuals in Boston who are unable to access primary health care.

With good news comes the bad news. This year’s Daffodil Days, held on March 16, raised $51,726 in funds for the American Cancer Society — the first time in its 22-year history that this year’s total did not surpass the previous year’s total ($53,329). However, with the economic downturn taken into consideration, “I still think we did fabulously,” said Daffodil Days coordinator Julie Russell.

Harvard University has a long-standing tradition of community engagement and public service. Students, faculty, and staff contribute to the quality of life in the University’s host cities through more than 350 programs addressing education, affordable housing, economic opportunity, civic life and culture, health, and the environment.

A former Massachusetts water official is proposing a new network of central Massachusetts reservoirs to meet population-driven demand that he says will outstrip current supplies in the coming decades.

The Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) will host its sixth annual Auction for the Summer Urban Program at the Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub (45 Quincy Street) on April 28 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. The event will support PBHA’s 12 summer camps, which serve more than 900 children and youth in Boston and Cambridge.

I once heard a story about service from a Focolarino, a member of the Focolare, a Catholic movement dedicated to Love of Neighbor. One day, the Focolarino was helping a poor man pick apples that he could sell to support his family. After he drove the man home, the Focolarino was surprised to find the poor man offering him some of the apples.

When I and 11 fellow Harvard students drove into Money, Miss., last week searching for the site of Emmett Till’s murder, we were expecting to find something to mark the event credited with igniting the Civil Rights Movement. Instead there was nothing.

Experience the stirring sights and plangent sounds of a singular Spring Break, during which Harvard students worked to renovate Katrina-ravaged houses, tutored children in afterschool programs, and met — and sang with — pioneers of the Civil Rights Movement, like Hollis Watkins (harmonizing, above from left with students Diane Ghogomu ’10 and Sumorwuo Zaza ’11).

The Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) will host its sixth annual auction for the Summer Urban Program at the Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub (45 Quincy Street) on April 28 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. The event will support PBHA’s 12 summer camps, which serve more than 900 children and youth in Boston and Cambridge. The silent auction will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. and will feature over 80 items, hors d’oeuvres, two complimentary drinks, and live jazz. The live auction of 10 items will begin at 7:30 p.m.

The Harvard Swim School is a program for all levels of swimming and diving ability taught by members of the Harvard men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams, under the supervision of the varsity coaching staff. The purpose of the school is to give individualized instruction to children and adults, ages 5 and up.

Harvard has a new, high-technology ID card, and those who have not yet picked up their card should do so at the final card swap event, March 5 and 6, at the Holyoke Information Center, 1350 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, Mass.

For the sixth year in a row, the Hasty Pudding Theatricals presented a check for $10,000 to the Cambridge Public Schools (CPS) for the promotion of arts education. Since its inception in 2002, the Hasty Pudding Theatricals Fund for Cultural Enrichment has subsidized tickets for thousands of Cambridge students to attend theatrical performances, cultural events, and museum exhibitions. To date, Hasty Pudding has donated more than $70,000.

With spring’s anticipated return still weeks away, there’s a beacon of yellow hope. Daffodils are an invigorating component in the American Cancer Society’s (ACS) efforts, and Harvard is again a key participant in Daffodil Days, the ACS’s annual flowery fight to help patients and eradicate cancer.

Al Witten worked as a teacher and principal for more than two decades in areas ravaged by poverty, crime, violence, and disease. Now the South African native is at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education (HGSE), where he is figuring out ways to make schools central to facing these daunting challenges.

With months until spring’s anticipated return comes a beacon of yellow hope. Daffodils are an invigorating component in the American Cancer Society’s (ACS) efforts, and Harvard is again a key participant in Daffodil Days, the ACS’s annual flowery fight to help patients and eradicate cancer.

Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending Dec. 15. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu.

The song tells us that there is “no place like home for the holidays,” and soon, many on the Harvard campus will be destined for far-flung places, both dear and familiar. The Harvard Square Homeless Shelter (HSHS) helps those who are not fortunate enough to have a home at all.

Santa came to Harvard a little early last week (Dec. 13). He sat comfortably in a chair on the second floor of Phillips Brooks House, clad in his familiar bright red outfit with white trim, plus the less familiar, yet practical, Merrell hiking shoes. He was taking a brief break between meeting groups of eager children anxious for an early Christmas present.

“Look at that blue! Look at it! Isn’t it pretty?” exclaims Adriana, a sixth-grader from Mother Caroline Academy in Dorchester. Four of Adriana’s peers rush to see the plastic paint tray she’s pointing at. They’re eager to share in Adriana’s excitement: after all, she’s just discovered a new shade of blue. This color, a luminous aqua, quickly makes it onto Adriana’s painting, titled “Me, Myself, and I.” This self-portrait, along with 15 others created by the students at the school, will be on exhibit at Harvard’s Gutman Library from Dec.14 to Jan. 5.

When the mayor of Somerville needed help with his city’s fiscal crisis in 2004, he looked to Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) for assistance. Four years later, in today’s uncertain economic climate, the city of Boston is turning to the institution for aid.

This is the fourth in a series of Gazette articles highlighting some of the many initiatives and charities that Harvard affiliates can support through this month’s Community Gifts Through Harvard campaign. The Community Gifts campaign allows affiliates to donate to a charity of their choice through cash, check, or payroll deduction.

Two young leaders, whose work on the front lines of public service has won national acclaim, were honored on Nov. 14 at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS).

Education, excitement about learning, and a sense of curiosity were the themes of the day as Harvard undergraduates and the Allston children they mentor joined Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, Harvard President Drew Faust, and dozens of Allston families to celebrate the Harvard Allston Education Portal on Nov. 21.

When she grows up, 7-year-old Carley Daly wants to be “an animal doctor” who takes care of dolphins. As she explained her coming profession: “They’re partly scientists.”

That’s the magic number for The Greater Boston Food Bank’s (GBFB) annual Turkey Drive, where just $15 provides a meaty turkey to families across eastern Massachusetts for the holiday. Yet with winter swiftly approaching, Thanksgiving is just the threshold for the need the GBFB anticipates this season.

Diane Rosenfeld, through her work at Harvard, has found a way to help many. Social justice and civil rights protection of domestic violence victims are at the core of Rosenfeld’s work, both as a lecturer at Harvard Law School (HLS) and as an activist with Jane Doe Inc., the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence.

It’s November again, signaling the cold autumn preamble to another lengthy Massachusetts winter. And here at Harvard, “giving month” has arrived — kicking off the annual Community Gifts Through Harvard campaign, a campuswide charitable initiative that draws much-needed dollars from generous faculty, staff, and retirees for various Massachusetts Bay charities during the month of November. This year’s goal is to reach upwards of $800,000.

Harvard University’s planners are seeking comment on preliminary refinements to several master planning concepts well in advance of filing an Institutional Master Plan (IMP) with the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), targeted for 2009.