On the first Wednesday of every month, students get together to give back.

Each month the Alibrandi Catholic Center opens up its doors — and its kitchen — and allows students to channel their inner baker.

Bridget Yule, director of Student Centers and Programming Services, has been involved with Baking for the Homeless for three years. Every month, she prepares a theme and recipes for the students who help with the preparation and decoration of the baked goods. This month’s theme is focused on the holiday season.

Yule said the baking sessions provide a unifying experience for the students who volunteer. As they decorate, they find common interests, and even though the students may not have known each other going into the project, they form a community by the end, Yule said.

“It’s a very bonding experience for the students and for me. It’s fun — for over three hours you can forget about everything and play,” Yule said. “It’s a good time for people to bond and baking is always fun, I think, for everybody.”

Yule said this strong sense of bonding results in a lot of repeat volunteers. One of those volunteers is Sierra Pizzola, a sophomore advertising major.

When Pizzola was in high school, she was very involved in volunteering and would always bake for charitable causes or when she was with her family. But when she started college, she no longer had access to an oven. Baking for the Homeless gave her the opportunity to get back into baking and to help a good cause at the same time, she said.

“For me, it’s just a time for relaxation, to have fun, to get away from all the schoolwork and the things that I have to do,” Pizzola said. “It’s a really relaxed environment — there’s no pressure if you mess up a recipe, and they are always willing to let you try new things.”

Pizzola added if it wasn’t for Baking with the Homeless, she would not be able to catch up with some of her friends from freshman year. She also tries to bring new people to the event, having gotten her roommate and other people living on her floor involved.

Maggie Byrne, the campus minister at the Catholic Center, said the event is a fun way to volunteer. At the same time, the homemade baked goods are very meaningful for those who receive them.

“The desserts are really elaborately decorated, and they take a lot of time to do that. People have a lot of fun when they are doing it,” Byrne said. “But they are also keeping in mind that for the people receive it, it’s going to be a big deal for them. It’s not just like a dessert-out-of-a-box thing, so that I think really contributes to the experience too.”

The next day, all of the baked goods are delivered by the Catholic Center to local nonprofits. This semester, the Center has mainly donated to the Samaritan Center, a soup kitchen in downtown Syracuse, and the Dorothy Day House, a center for women who have been the victims of abuse. Byrne said that the baked goods provided by the center are sometimes the only desserts donated to these nonprofits.

For Byrne, volunteering not only helps those in need, but can provide an opportunity for busy students to connect with the community they live in, and that it’s “good for the soul.”

“I know when you are in school there is so much going on and it’s just ‘go go go,’ and it’s hard to get outside yourself and to focus on anything outside of what you immediately need to do,” Byrne said. “So service is a distinct time when you say, ‘I am here to help another person, I am not here for me. I am here for another person.’”

While the baking is done on campus, Alibrandi staff members drop off the baked goods at local nonprofits, which can also be a very rewarding experience, said Jose Gonzalez, assistant to the campus minister.

Gonzalez, a sophomore anthropology major, said that while he has delivered the baked goods this semester, he has had many great interactions with people at the charities.

“You go there and they are really grateful, they say thanks like a million times. They are always happy,” Gonzalez said.

He also said volunteer initiatives like Baking for the Homeless provide ways for Syracuse students to combat the stigma that college students don’t care about volunteer work.

Said Gonzalez: “Sometimes a bad stigma that the city has on the school is that the students don’t really care about the city. It’s these little things that show we care about them, that we are self-giving and we’re not always thinking about ourselves and we take the time to do these things, even if it’s a little cupcake.”

Published on December 4, 2014 at 12:05 am

Contact Brendan: bskrisel@syr.edu