The Community Engagement office is offering a multitude of opportunities to students this year. From teaching younger kids in programs like Youth Development Organization (YDO) Biology to writing and sending letters to deployed service members through Adopt-A-Platoon, Andover students can directly engage with and impact the world around them through these programs.
All programs are cultivated in partnership with local community partners. According to Monique Cueto-Potts, Director of the Community Engagement Office, most programs are over twenty years old. Each program’s number of volunteer slots changes in accordance with community partners’ needs over the years. As an example, Cueto-Potts explained that the number of students partaking in Arc, a program allowing students to buddy with adults with special needs from Andover and the greater Lawrence area, has shifted over time. Many members of Arc started in the program decades ago as children; now adults, some members of the Arc cohort have moved away from the program, so less student volunteers are needed.
“We are assessing how many PA volunteers each Arc buddy is going to need… The participants in Arc are now adults. This is a population of adults who have special needs. Some of them have aged out, or they don’t want to come to a program at six o’clock at night because they’re tired [or have developed health issues that make it difficult to participate]. Others, they used to be driven by their parents and their parents have passed away or they don’t have transportation.”
Cueto-Potts continued, “We saw a decline in the number of Arc participants during and after COVID because a lot of people left the group homes that they were living in. A lot of the Arc buddies come from group homes, and a lot of them left the group homes and moved out of state or to another facility closer to where their family may be. And so there are fewer volunteers in Arc than there were 10, 15, 20, 40 years ago because there are fewer Arc [adult] participants.”
Sebastián Vermut ’27, a student coordinator for Arc, explained why he initially joined the program. Having done community engagement back home during middle school, he eventually found Arc to be the right fit for him.
“The first thing I did was, for my first year, Adopt-A-Platoon, and while I enjoyed it and it’s a very rewarding program for a lot of people, one thing that I was missing compared to what I used to do [was] that one-on-one experience I really value. Back home and in 7th to 8th grade, I did a lot of tutoring … for that reason I also got involved in [Andover-unaffiliated] Boston Scholars Tutoring, which is cool, but that was over Zoom, and I was still missing that magic. And so when I came [back] for Lower year, I decided I wanted a different program,” said Vermut. “I signed up for Arc… I’ve been doing it since then. It’s been really rewarding.”
Cueto-Potts explained how community engagement through direct interaction can benefit students, alongside those they interact with.
“[Direct-engagement] volunteering has proven to be the most effective way for kids to get interested in community engagement and stay interested in community engagement. And that’s just not an Andover thing. Surveys done of students, high school students all over the place, [show] that usually when it is a program where there is direct engagement with someone, and it’s sustained over a period of time, that has the most lasting impact on people. And students who are participating in that sort of community engagement are more likely as adults to volunteer their time or their talents or their efforts,” said Cueto-Potts.
Cueto-Potts continued, “Part of the reason why we don’t do collection drives and fundraisers and those sorts of activities is we put all of our time and energy into the types of programs that are going to have the biggest impact, not only on our students, but also on our community partners as well.”
Larkin Techentin ’27, a coordinator for Andover Bread Loaf Writing Workshop and Pen Pals, works with second graders at South Lawrence East Elementary School on poetry and other writing exercises. Techentin described how the program’s 40-minute sessions affect both the children and Andover volunteers.
“I just remember, after the first time, being so happy, laughing with the children, that I just wanted to continue doing it,” said Techentin. “At the same time, it made my day infinitely better. The energy on the bus ride there is always so much more dreary than on the way back when everyone’s just laughing and talking with each other on the bus, even just with the volunteers themselves.”
Gemmi Haripottawekul ’28, student coordinator of YDO Chemistry, encouraged students to partake in any community engagement program that piques their interest.
“Just give it a shot. There’s a bunch of programs. A few of my friends do Bread Loaf or Arc. There’s so many different ones that [hold] so many different values for them. They’re all very, very interesting in their own respective ways. I feel just putting yourself out there and not being afraid to do something that might not necessarily be familiar to you is the most important thing, and maybe you’ll fall in love with it and want to do it later on as well,” said Haripottawekul.
