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Community Service

Defining the Merrimack Experience

Community service has long been an indispensable part of a Merrimack education and today, more than half a century after the College’s founding, it still defines the Merrimack experience. The growth of students not only intellectually, but also spiritually and morally, is the foundation of our Augustinian heritage, with its emphasis on community life and caring for one another.

It is a powerful combination of academic excellence integrated with the enriching experience of community service that shapes our students and guides them to a rich and fulfilling life.

Merrimack devotes the resources of its faculty, students and staff to continued cooperation and collaboration with grass roots, government, business and community initiatives. The College promotes a cooperative approach among members of the college to teaching and learning, to research, and to social justice in sustaining the College’s responsibility as a partner among neighboring communities.

Community Partnership Programs

Stevens Service Learning Center

Hundreds of Merrimack students and faculty members integrate volunteer opportunities with various courses in all divisions of the college each semester through the Stevens Service Learning Center. Service learning brings students into the life and needs of the communities that surround the campus and also bring those community needs into the life of the college curriculum. Students take an active role in learning and benefit from valuable connections of these experiences to their academic learning.

The Stevens Service Learning Center at Merrimack, which was established in 1998 through a grant from the Stevens Foundation, places students in elder service programs, nursing homes, elementary schools, day care centers, boys and girls clubs, homeless shelters and soup kitchens, court systems and many other service organizations in need. 

MerrimAction

Hundreds of students are members of MerrimAction, a student organization that encourages commitment to social justice principles and engagement. Merrimack students volunteer their time in myriad ways, including serving meals to the homeless, babysitting for single teen mothers, reading to children, painting and tutoring. Working with service agencies in the City of Lawrence, Mass., and surrounding communities. MerrimAction heightens the College community’s awareness of cultural and urban issues, offering experiences that teach students how they can be transformed in the process of reaching out to others.

Alternative Spring Break

Working in a soup kitchen. Volunteering at an Augustinian orphanage or school. Building and repairing homes. These are but a few of the volunteer activities that many Merrimack College students and their advisors perform every year during Alternative Spring Break, a tradition on the Merrimack campus for nearly 50 years. During their travel to various locations across the U.S., Mexico, Latin America and Peru, students become involved in communities and exposed to different cultures. These experiences encourage a lifetime of civic involvement, and often for the first time, students see the struggles that others must endure. Students raise their own funds to cover expenses of transportation and meals.

Accept the Challenge

Accept the Challenge assists academically promising, low-income ninth to twelve graders who are learning English as a second language to stay in school, access higher education and grow into strong community leaders. Working with approximately 35 to 40 Lawrence High School students and 25 college students annually, Accept the Challenge helps students who face cultural, financial and linguistic obstacles. More than 45 high school students, mostly from Lawrence, Mass., have received college scholarship for full tuition, room and board at Merrimack and many other students have attended other institutions of higher learning. In addition, the program also requires each Accept the Challenge college-enrolled student at Merrimack to contribute 160 hours of community service back into the program and area neighborhoods. A Middle School Challenge program is also offered.

The Blessed Stephen Bellesini, O.S.A. Academy

Merrimack College was the first college in the country to sponsor a Nativity model school, the Blessed Stephen Bellesini, O.S.A. Academy in Lawrence, Mass. that opened in 2002. The Bellesini Academy, a financially independent, Catholic middle school for boys, provides a quality education integrated with moral and spiritual development for struggling but promising students of low-income urban families. Its mission is to provide an academically challenging and highly-structured environment that develops the potential for each student to succeed in competitive secondary schools and colleges. Some of Merrimack's alumni have served as volunteer teachers and Merrimack's students provide mentoring and other volunteer services for the academy. Bellesini Academy's Web Site

The commitment to community service that owes its roots to the founders of Merrimack College is as strong today as it ever was. New initiatives that strengthen this commitment continue to be embraced by the College’s students, faculty, alumni, administration, board of trustees and other friends.