For many students, being at Whitman has nothing to do with Walla Walla.   But for the first-year students who went on the first ever SCOREs, that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

“People say that Whitman is the best thing that ever happened to them,” said first-year William Newman-Wise.

“We can say that about Walla Walla too,” explained Robbie Seager, a fellow SCOREs veteran.

Before the Whitman semester began, Newman-Wise and 15 other incoming first-years went on   SCOREs, or “Summer Community Outreach Excursions.” Unlike Scrambles, which focus on getting to know each other in a wilderness setting, SCOREs are designed to give incoming first-years an opportunity to start making a difference in the Walla Walla community through working with local non-profit organizations.

“Walla Walla is not a big city, but we have a very caring community. A lot of people care a lot about their fellow citizens and want to help improve their quality of life,” said Community Service Coordinator Lina Menard. “There are more than 60 nonprofits within  two miles of campus,” she said, offering students a wide array of possibilities to get involved in community service.

The SCOREs program helps incoming students become familiar with that community before school even starts. This year, participating first-years chose one of two themes to be involved in, either “Housing and Homelessness” or “Food and Hunger.” The “Housing and Homelessness” SCORE worked with Habitat for Humanity and  Farm Labor Camps and also built beds for a new women’s shelter that is opening in Walla Walla. The “Food and Hunger” SCORE worked on  three different  farms, volunteered at the farmers market,  toured local food banks and served dinner at a homeless shelter.

“I think we all learned more than we had bargained for,” said senior Karina Kidd, who led the “Food and Hunger” SCORE. “I definitely would have gone on this trip as a freshman had I had the option.”

For first-year Robby Seager, SCOREs offered “the chance to do something like a Scramble, but I wanted to do something else where I wasn’t just serving myself and I could meet other people who are into that as well.” He took full advantage of the opportunity, and now is working to set up a tutoring program between Whitman students and Lincoln High School.

This was the first time many of the students had been in the Walla Walla community, and the impact of getting involved in local issues was evident in their comments. “It gives a context to my education,” said first-year Lillian Bailey. Others explained how it gave them the ability to go beyond the usual limits of Main Street.

The exposure to the city and infrastructure has clearly left an impression. All four SCOREs veterans interviewed were already getting involved both in the community and here at Whitman in activities from mentoring to trying to organize free swing dance lessons for local high-schoolers.

This program is only part of a continued expansion of Whitman’s community service options. The community service office has recently taken control of the Youth Adventure program (YAP) and Adopt-a-Grandparent (AAG) program, and they are also planning more service trips for the rest of the year that will be open to the entire student body.

“Seeing how a great group of new students were able to rally around something that they cared about and how they used that issue to learn about the Walla Walla community and each other was very inspiring,” said Menard.

SCOREs offer much more than the chance to do community service for a week, they offer the ability to become an active member of the community in which all Whitman students live.

“I feel like  a resident of Walla Walla now and a student of Whitman,” said Newman-Wise.