Several members of the Hamilton community read to students at Kernan Elementary School in Utica on Dec. 16 as part of a Community Readers’ Day hosted by the school.

The men and women of Hamilton’s CSI team have some of the most specialized and important skills on campus. They’re not crime scene investigators, though—CSI stands for COOP Service Intern, one of the many service opportunities offered by Hamilton’s Community Opportunity and Outreach Project (COOP). Each year, a half-dozen first-year students join this selective program, which is focused on matching a student with a local non-profit agency for an extended four-semester internship.

Anyone who has participated in one of Hamilton Association for Volunteering Outreach and Charity (HAVOC) days of service knows that the adage “the early bird catches the worm” readily applies to the sign-up process. By 10:45 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 10, volunteers had already begun lining up at tables in the Fillius Events Barn, eager to match themselves with the sites of their choices for HAVOC’s annual Make a Difference Day.

It was an anniversary of sorts.

To COOP director Amy James, 2011 marks the year that every class of Hamilton students has participated in Hamilton Serves. The Orientation program began in 2008 and takes the students to volunteer at local non-profit agencies for the morning before classes start.

The fourth annual Hamilton Serves took place on Wednesday, Aug. 24, with the entire first-year class and new transfer students going out to volunteer at 61 community organizations. Amy James, COOP director, noted this year was a milestone as now “every student on campus will have gone through the program.”

Hamilton College will celebrate the legacy of labor and civil rights leader Cesar Chavez with volunteer projects and campus events from March 30 through April 2. Chavez led the non-violent movement for farmworkers’ rights, a movement that extended beyond the fields and into cities and towns across the nation, and helped found the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers (UFW).

Reading is an essential skill that most experts agree is developed at a very early stage in a child’s education. Yet not all students acquire this vital skill at the same rate, and many need extra help to become fluid readers. To aid some of these students, Hamilton recently began a new community outreach program at Kernan Elementary School in Utica to help second-graders  improve their reading abilities.

On an Alternative Spring Break trip last year, Alysha Banerji ’11 was working with first-graders at a school in North Carolina when one of them proclaimed that his cat had just birthed kittens. The boy asked if Banerji wanted one, but when she told him that pets weren’t allowed in college dorms, he exclaimed, “I want to go to college!”

Hamilton students have the opportunity to establish meaningful relationships with local nonprofit organizations beginning in their first semester of college through a pilot program operated by the Hamilton Community Opportunity and Outreach Project (COOP).