Eastern Connecticut State University

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Contributions to the Public Good

Service to the Local Willimantic Community

Eastern’s 2008–13 Strategic Plan calls for the creation of a Center for Community Engagement.
Students from 60 clubs and organizations give more than 25,000 volunteer hours a year to 40 local nonprofit organizations and social service agencies, conducting food and clothing drives, sponsoring sports clinics, and volunteering at the local soup kitchen.
More than 60 percent of Education majors (270 students) spend 2,500 hours each year in local schools, providing after-school tutoring, offering family literacy programs, mentoring, and student teaching.
Eastern Hits the Streets: twice a year, hundreds of students spruce up downtown Willimantic.
The Senior Design Group, a group of senior graphic designers who do pro bono work as an ongoing service learning project, have developed everything from Willimantic Food Coop billboards to Third Thursday banners to art for the Juvenile Court Building.

Service to the Region and the State of Connecticut

The Institute for Sustainable Energy provides education and outreach on energy and sustainability throughout Connecticut and the region, and has audited more than 150 public schools and more than 140 municipal and state-owned buildings to help improve energy efficiency in the state.
Eastern Communication students won first-place in a state contest to develop a TV commercial aimed at reducing underage drinking; the spot has aired more than 250 times on Connecticut TV stations and was cited by the Lt. Governor of Connecticut.
Eastern employees have donated more than $180,000 over the past six years to the State Employees Charitable Campaign.
Eastern is helping more than 140 small businesses, civic leaders, and community members from the Windham region on ways to bridge cultural and language barriers.

Eastern’s Economic Impact in the Windham Region

$37,275,000	Direct University expenditures, state grant transfers, and expenditures from employee salaries
$2,631,000	State Payments in lieu of Taxes
39,907,000	Total Quantifiable Impact
$735,000	Spent by Campus Visitors
23 percent of 831 Employees	Reside in the Region

Students, faculty and staff volunteers served food to more than 400 local residents during the November 21, 2007 Day of Giving. A related food drive netted more than 10,000 canned goods for local food pantries and soup kitchens. (The 2008 event fed more than 400 people and yielded 20,000 canned goods for local food pantries.)

Eastern students joined colleagues from several other colleges to build a house in West Virginia during Spring Break 2008. Students from Eastern’s Chapter of Habitat for Humanity have built 30 houses in the past eight years in such places as Guatemala, New Orleans and Willimantic.

Cheyenne Thibeault (left) and Kelsey Allen-McQuade (center) of Baltic were two of five schoolchildren who helped Jeffrey Cullen ’08 (standing), Laura Kolar ’09 (right) and their teammates create the award-winning “Talk to Me” public service announcement.