Holy Cross in the Community
Holy Cross is an integral part of the community of Worcester. We are actively engaged – particularly with our nearest neighbors on College Hill and in South Worcester – in making our city an even better place to live, work, and raise families. In addition, through community-based learning and service activities, our students and faculty are involved in hands-on work with the City of Worcester and its residents, making a substantial difference in the quality of local life.
This involvement takes place on many levels, and it deepens the learning experience we offer to our students as well as helping others. Community-based learning course projects bring Holy Cross people into local churches, municipal offices, senior centers, shelters, museums, open spaces, schools, and neighborhoods. In these projects, our students collect and archive oral histories, prepare tax returns for the elderly, tutor and mentor children, assist in community organizing, and conduct environmental studies.
Holy Cross has also been a leader in the Worcester UniverCity Partnership, a national model for university-municipal engagement. The Partnership was established to bring together the Colleges of Worcester Consortium, the City of Worcester, and the business community – in the form of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Worcester Business Development Corporation – in a collaborative effort to promote local economic development.
For a complete listing of the College's community service and outreach initiatives, please view the .pdf of our publication, Holy Cross in the Community.
Key Initiatives
The College undertakes major institutional initiatives, concentrating on areas in which we have significant experience, notably infrastructure development and education.
Community and infrastructure development
- Making a strategic investment of $25,000 to leverage City and grant funding to increase the capacity of the South Worcester Neighborhood Improvement Corporation (SWNIC) to address housing, economic development, and quality of life issues; also guaranteeing two loans totaling $1.4 million to SWNIC, enabling it to access capital to build 12 units of affordable condominium housing. The neighborhood would not have been able to secure financing without the College's backing.
- Contributing $20,000 to the City to develop a master plan for Cookson Park, an overgrown, underutilized 19-acre tract of urban open space in the College Hill neighborhood. The Holy Cross Student Government Association raised an additional $10,000 for cleanup and maintenance.
- Providing Fitton Field rent-free to the Worcester Tornadoes professional baseball team during its summer season.
Education
- Co-sponsoring, with the Society of Jesus of New England, the Nativity School of Worcester, an all-scholarship middle school serving 51 boys of all religious backgrounds from the City's most vulnerable neighborhoods. The College and its students, parents, staff, and alumni have provided support on many levels, and cash contributions from the Holy Cross Jesuit community have totaled more than $150,000.
- Creating the Donelan Office of Community-Based Learning, which since 2001 has offered more than 2,500 students the opportunity to integrate classroom study with immersion in the real world. Approximately 25 percent of all Holy Cross students participate in community-based learning each academic year. Virtually every academic department has offered community-based learning courses – ranging from environmental chemistry to public history to faith and social change.
- Overseeing the Lilly Internships, where up to 60 Holy Cross students each summer have paid internships working in ministry, government, and social service agencies in Worcester.