Do-It Day is a longstanding Trinity tradition of giving back to Hartford – many students and faculty spent this past Saturday doing community service at various jobsites all around the capital city.
Anyone can register for Do-It Day, either as an individual or a group. I’m on the softball team at Trinity, and we always volunteer together. This year we helped out at a local restaurant called Fire by Forge – the same place we were at last year, by coincidence.
We started the day by checking in at the Office of Community Service and Civic Engagement in downstairs Mather and getting our Do-It Day t–shirts (which looked SO good this year). We then set off on our 5-minute drive. Once we got to the restaurant, we were greeted by a woman named Becky. She gave us gloves and gardening tools and showed us the ropes of what we would be doing – mainly weeding and planting flowers, generally sprucing up the outdoor look of the restaurant.
After working for about an hour, someone stopped us – Keith McGilvery, a news anchor from Fox 61 (a Connecticut morning news show), who just happened to see us on his walk home. We talked for a while, and he posted us on his Instagram and Twitter after telling us he would air a story about us next week!
We kept at it for a little while longer and filled up many bags with all of the unwanted foliage. Some of my teammates planted flowers near the front of the restaurant too. After we were all finished, Becky gave us plenty of water and offered us bags of chips and Fire by Forge’s Hartford-renowned chocolate chip cookies (which even surpassed what I’ve heard about them). She also gave us a tour of the inside of the place, which was super impressive to all of the returners, considering that at last year’s Do-It Day we helped move furniture out of the restaurant while it was in a state of construction.
Before leaving, we voted on our team “Do-It Day MVP” … first year Bella Calagna came out on top with her green thumb, helping us distinguish weeds from other plants that we were not supposed to rip out of the ground!
All in all, it was an awesome day of giving back to the community and team bonding before our fall season really kicks off. I look forward to Do–It Day every year and can’t wait to see where we’re assigned next fall!
