"Because of Cornell's Pre-Orientation Service Trips (POST), I met my best friends, regained a passion for community service, became a POST leader, and I got to feel as though I belong at Cornell. I believe I had the best possible Cornell experience possible!" notes a former POST participant and team leader.

POST, now entering its 16th year, provides new Cornell students with the opportunity to get a head start on making new friends by coming to Ithaca a week early to work in small teams on daily community service projects. Each year, POST provides more than 1,800 hours of service to the local community before the Cornell academic year even begins. Over the years, more than 900 students have participated.

This year, 62 incoming freshman and transfer students led by 14 team leader volunteers are spending five days at more than 22 nonprofit organizations and schools. The students spend their evenings getting to know the local community and each other. They spend their nights camping out in the Boynton Middle School gymnasium.

"The students work on projects that address issues specific to the Tompkins County community, from animal rights and rescue to accessibility, hunger and poverty, health care and aging, affordable housing and childhood literacy," said Renee Farkas, POST's program coordinator.

Those issues are central to the program's host sites. This year POST has branched out to include a host site in Cortland, the YWCA women's organization. Other sites include the Family Reading Partnership, Hospicare, Ithaca Children's Garden, Ithaca Free Clinic, Immaculate Conception School, Loaves and Fishes free meal program, Longview residential senior retirement community, Meadowgate equine rescue and rehabilitation facility, Planned Parenthood of the Southern Finger Lakes, Salvation Army, SPCA of Tompkins County, town of Ithaca's public works department and Ithaca City School District.

It's not all work. Activities include a scavenger hunt and contra dancing on the Ithaca Commons, bowling and a celebratory barbeque at Stewart Park.

The program is co-sponsored by Tompkins County Area Transportation (TCAT), which provides assistance with bus passes to transport the students to a different work site each day, and Ithaca's Boynton Middle School.

POST is a program of the Cornell Public Service Center, the university's hub for service learning connecting students, faculty and alumni with community organizations to work together in projects for the common good.