“Serve Lansing is really an opportunity for us to do two things,” Andi Crawford, Director of Neighborhood Organizations for the City of Lansing, said. “One, for the mayor and the administration to make a broad commitment to the role of volunteerism and community service across the city ... and then two, for us to have a mechanism by which we could hopefully coordinate a lot of these efforts.”

Efforts to grow civic engagement include getting citizens involved in informal service projects, voting and serving on boards and commissions, Crawford said. Tasks for enhancing beautification in neighborhoods and the city include shoveling snow, cutting grass, raking leaves and picking up trash. The program will also educate citizens on how to be prepared in the event of an emergency.

Supplying resources

Volunteers are needed to fulfill these priorities. They can connect through United Way, an online portal to find volunteer opportunities. The City of Lansing cannot accomplish these projects alone, but their function is to “help coordinate those and maximize the resources,” Crawford said.

Serve Lansing began out of a partnership with United Way, said Kristina Coby, director of Volunteer and Community Engagement for the MCSC. Volunteer programs such as Serve Lansing use management software Get Connected by Galaxy Digital, which is a technology platform that volunteers have desired for more than 15 years, Coby said.

“It is extremely effective,” Coby said. “The data that pulls out of Get Connected really does tell the story.”

These opportunities include training, funding for projects and supplying materials, she said.

Understanding volunteers’ needs allows the program to provide resources. Crawford spoke of an instance where volunteers were able to bring smaller tools to help with trimming bushes at Cherry Hill Park while the city supplied more advanced equipment.

“They can chainsaw the limbs down, so the neighbors can drag them over and throw them in the big chipper,” Crawford said. “It’s about coordinating those resources, bringing what the city has to offer and really partnering with our citizens to do the work.”

Another project is an extensive leaf cleanup in the Baker-Donora neighborhood that has gone on for the past two years, Crawford said. This is a crucial task to prevent leaves from clogging drains throughout the city.

“Leaf removal is actually a pretty big issue because it can lead to flooding problems come springtime,” she said. “We have tool trucks within the city ... dozens and dozens of rakes, wheelbarrows and all kinds of equipment.”

For emergency preparedness and response efforts, she said the city will be emphasizing and educating citizens on the importance of leaf cleanup to prevent flooding.

Funding

Neighborhoods can request grants to fund projects through the Mayor’s Neighborhood Advisory Board. Crawford said the board is a matchmaker between community needs and finding who can offer to help.

The advisory board “works with (neighborhoods) to see if there’s other funding strategies available, particularly if there’s in-kind contributions or donations that we can solicit from other organizations,” Crawford said. “We also bring a lot of volunteers into the city; large organizations, businesses and others will want to do service days.”

Partnering with nonprofits

Serve Lansing is a coalition of community partners, Crawford said.

“The city is very capable of convening people around a common goal,” she said. “That’s what our real role is within Serve Lansing, to bring those folks together.”

Lansing works with Cities of Service, a nonprofit that guides city leaders to engage their communities. The organization strives to strengthen the relationship between the people and the elected, said Myung Lee, executive director of Cities of Service.

“Lansing is one of our top star cities,” Lee said. “Lansing, under the direction of Andi Crawford, has done such tremendous work to reach out and to engage the community members in a real, meaningful way. She’s been really listening to what the community members are looking to accomplish.”

The MCSC “supports all municipalities, organizations and programs that use volunteerism as a solution to getting their work done,” Coby said, adding that the commission provides professional training for the initiative.

MSU’s Center for Service-Learning and Civic Engagement works with Serve Lansing to “strengthen the volunteer infrastructure in the greater Lansing region,” center director Renee Brown said in an email, adding the center recruits students and residents to participate, including “neighborhood revitalization, disaster relief, social entrepreneurship, voting education and more.”

The center will select five students for a year-long project through the Community Engagement Scholars Program. Beginning in mid-October, the students will work on projects with Serve Lansing until spring semester.

“This is an exciting opportunity (for) Lansing partners and MSU students to collaborate,” Brown said.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct a quote from Myung Lee in which she said "community members," not bumpers as originally written.