About 400 Gannon University students, faculty and staff are expected to answer the call of service on Saturday, April 14 for Day of Caring.

(More info and signups available here.)

This year, the action will focus on the neighborhood adjacent to campus that is part of the Our West Bayfront initiative organized and funded in part by Gannon University.

Eager volunteers will be out spring cleaning and preparing outdoor environments at:
• Gridley Park, where the Gannon University football team will prepare the park for a busy summer season.
• The Historic Little Italy neighborhood, where a neighborhood cleanup and garden preparation team will assist the SSJ Neighborhood Network sponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Northwestern Pennsylvania.
• Frontier Park, in association with the Lake Erie Arboretum at Frontier (LEAF).

Other Gannon University volunteers will be assisting TreeVitalize, the Gannon-led program that has planted hundreds of trees in Erie since 2012. Maintenance crews from the University will drop mulch around the trees that volunteers will move into place. This is TreeVitalize’s final tree graduation at the end of the grant cycle.

Still more volunteers will help prepare a garden at the Urban Erie Community Development Corporation/ E.F. Smith Quality of Life Learning Center, while others will assist residents at L’Arche homes and sites operated by Housing and Neighborhood Development Service (HANDS), including St. Joseph’s, Maryvale and Villa Maria Apartments.

(More info and signups available here.)