Making Their Mark

Julia Coffin ’09 is making French toast and can’t find the cinnamon. She rummages through the shelf of scattered spices again and sighs. “I’ll just pick some up next time I’m out,” she says under her breath. Suzanne Merkelson ’09 resumes cracking eggs, and the two women decide to continue cooking without the cinnamon.

It’s 6:30 on a Monday morning, and the French toast isn’t an early breakfast for Coffin and Merkelson to enjoy. It’s for the men and women sitting at the large wooden table behind them at the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter.

Suzanne Merkelson ’09 makes breakfast at the homeless shelter.

Coffin and Merkelson are two of  many students who volunteer to help people in need in Waterville. While Colby is a picturesque campus on a hill, Waterville, like many former mill towns in New England, is a community working to redefine itself in a new post-industrial era. But it faces serious challenges. Good jobs are scarce, and the recent economic downturn is likely to make things worse. In January Maine’s unemployment rate hit its peak since 1983. Of Waterville’s 15,600 residents, 19 percent live below the poverty level. Many Colby students eagerly do whatever they can to help.

These Colby seniors woke up about an hour earlier, when the stars were just beginning to fade. Another routine Monday morning. “I’ve been doing this for two years now,” Coffin said. Last year they rolled out of bed early every Friday instead. Coffin and Merkelson started the tradition of “French toast Fridays” with the belief that people appreciate seeing familiar faces.

This Monday morning was a quick one. The Colby seniors made breakfast for about 10 residents as they chatted with one woman about her daughter’s Halloween costumes. (Last year she was the genie from the TV show I Dream of Jeannie; this year a monster from Scream.) Coffin and Merkelson clean up the kitchen right after breakfast and say their goodbyes. The residents have to leave by 8 a.m. anyway, and they won’t be back until 5 p.m. for dinner.

The Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter is one of many organizations that Colby students support through the Colby Volunteer Center (CVC). The South End Teen Center, which provides after-school programs to students in a low-income, historically French-Canadian neighborhood, was started by Colby students and is now considered an integral part of the Waterville community. Students also volunteer at the Evening Sandwich Program, which serves dinner at a local church to those in need. They volunteer with individual school-children through Colby Cares About Kids, and they tutor in weekly sessions.

Sameera Anwar ’10, assistant director of the CVC, volunteered at the Evening Sandwich Program every Tuesday this fall, before going abroad this spring. Serving baloney sandwiches, soup, and cookies until they run out, Anwar feels that getting to know Waterville is an essential part of the Colby experience. “It’s our duty to offer the resources we have for our community,” she said.

Coffin, too, sees volunteering as essential—because the services are essential. “You can’t survive in Maine on the street,” she said, referring to the cold Maine winters. And she worries about the women in the shelter. “They would be in a bad relationship if this wasn’t an option.”

A member of the alpine ski team and varsity soccer player until junior year, Coffin chose the homeless shelter partly because of the hours. “The only time [for me] to volunteer is six a.m.” She has enjoyed getting to know the regulars. “It’s a happy and sad thing when you see your favorite people aren’t there anymore. It’s, ‘Oh well, I don’t get to talk to you—but you’re not in the shelter,’” she said. She also recalls a few uncomfortable moments. “They always find Colby articles [in the paper] and show them to us. Once there was an article about Colby tuition rising and they asked, ‘Does it really cost this much? And you can afford that?’”

• Extracurricular