UW-Milwaukee Students Rake for the Elderly

It is around that time of the year as autumn turns into winter and the leaves on the trees start to fall. You can witness people around the neighborhood raking and blowing the leaves out of their yards. However, for some this may not be as easy as it looks.

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Center for Community-Based Learning, Leadership, and Research, hosted its 10th annual RAK-athon Nov. 8 from 8 a.m. until noon.

Over 600 volunteers, who were mostly students, helped rake the leaves in the yards of over 90 older adults around the community. According to Nicole Glaser, event coordinator, helping rake leaves is a large need in the Milwaukee community, and there are many elderly adults who do not have help to do so. The location of these yards can be as far as Whitefish Bay or Fox Point. UWM provides transportation to the locations for teams that cannot get themselves there.

RAK in RAK-athon stands for Random Acts of Kindness, and that’s exactly what this event is all about, organizers say. The volunteers create teams and are assigned one or more yards to help rake. The volunteers not only rake leaves for these elderly people, but they also remove the leaves from the yard and place them in street for pick-up. The students who volunteered on this Saturday morning did not do it because they had to; they did it because they wanted to.

“I just really like to help people that can’t help themselves,” junior and returning volunteer at UWM, Dana Shannon, says. “I feel like it’s my duty.” Shannon was a part of team Panthers, which was a team of student-athletes at UWM.

At the beginning of the day, each team checked in at the UWM Union. The Center for Community-Based Learning, Leadership, and Research provided breakfast for the volunteers before they left to go to their destinations. They also supplied each team with two rakes and gloves to use. From there, each team traveled to their assigned locations, and began to do their job.

Workers of the event said they also had a good time.

“I truly enjoyed the RAK-athon, it was my first one and I think I really enjoyed it,” student worker Rone Germanski said.

At the end of the day the event had a great turn out, organizers said. It was the first time the RAK-athon had so many volunteers participate.

“I think the event went really well, were getting a lot of great feedback from the volunteers, we’ve had older adults call thanking us for the service, so I think it went great,” says Nicole Glaser.

The RAK-athon is not the only event the Center for Community-Based Learning, Leadership, and Research conducts around campus. They host food drives, folk fairs, and even older adult holiday parties. They say their mission is to partner with the community to inspire students, faculty, and staff to engage in activities that foster enduring personal and social change.