The annual Honor Roll, which is the highest federal recognition a school can receive for its community service, salutes institutions that achieve meaningful and measureable outcomes in the communities they serve. This year marks the fourth time Fordham was named to the Honor Roll.

“Social justice is at the heart of Fordham’s [mission]and we’re excited to receive an award that reflects the work we do as a whole,” said Sandra Lobo-Jost, FCRH ’97, GSS ’04, director of the Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice, which is the liaison organization between Fordham and its surrounding communities in the Bronx and Manhattan.

Fordham was recognized in the categories of “General Community Service” and “Education.” The general category acknowledges institutions that are committed to improving the quality of life within the community—particularly for low-income individuals—in any form of service, including education, health, economic opportunity, environmental restoration, and support for veterans and military families. The education category recognizes institutions that work to improve educational outcomes for children and youth in pre-K through undergraduate education.

Among the public service projects in which Fordham students volunteered were New York City’s HOPE Count to estimate the number of homeless New Yorkers and Urban Plunge, a program in which student volunteers work to combat hunger, promote affordable housing, educate youth, and foster community development in various communities across New York City.

The Dorothy Day Center also connected Fordham’s student groups with at-risk youth in local middle and high schools to provide mentorship, arts and academic workshops, and to offer guidance to high school student clubs.

Universities are chosen based on innovation of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service, and the breadth of academic service-learning credits. This final criterion is another important component of Fordham education, which includes more than two dozen “service integrated” courses across all disciplines.

Launched in 2006, the President’s Community Service Honor Roll highlights the roles that colleges and universities play in serving local communities and in gearing students toward a life of civic engagement. It is an initiative of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the agency that oversees federal service organization such as AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, and the Social Innovation Fund.

Are you interested in giving up one night of your time to help the homeless?

Fordham University’s Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice is recruiting students, staff and faculty to participate in the annual Homeless Outreach Population Estimate (HOPE) count, to be held at the Rose Hill campus on Monday, Jan. 31.

The annual event attracts some 3000 volunteers citywide, who spend one night a year combing streets, subways, parks and public spaces to count the numbers of New Yorkers who live unsheltered in the city.

For the past six years, Fordham has been designated one of the volunteer training center sites for Bronx neighborhoods by the city’s Department of Homeless Services. Last year some 120 volunteers were trained at the Fordham site to participate in the count, which takes place in surrounding Bronx neighborhoods from midnight to 4 a.m. Groups travel on foot and are accompanied by New York City police patrolmen.

Information gathered on the 2011 HOPE count will be used to determine federal and state money to be allocated to New York and, more specifically, to each borough.

For more information or to volunteer, contact Caitlin Becker associate coordinator of Community Service at the Day Center or register on line.

–Janet Sassi

But a few of them had no real place to go.

Members of the Fordham community attended training (top), then packed into Ram Vans and cars to canvass neighborhoods in the Bronx all night long for the annual HOPE count. (Photos by Bruce Gilbert)

Although the Bronx has experienced a 72 percent reduction in homelessness since 2005, according to the New York CIty Department of Homeless Services (DHS), there are still roughly 35,000 homeless New Yorkers. On Tuesday Fordham University joined with DHS and BronxWorks to conduct the 2010 Homeless Outreach Population Estimate (HOPE) through Bronx and other neighborhoods.

From midnight to 4 a.m., some 120 Fordham students, faculty, administrators, alumni and DHS volunteers participated in canvassing several neighborhoods in the Bronx—including some of the largest homeless enclaves in the city.

It was the fifth year that the Fordham community has helped the city monitor its homeless population and gauge its outreach efforts. Information gathered on the 2010 HOPE count will be used to determine federal and state money to be allocated to New York and, more specifically, to each borough.

“It’s a human right to have shelter,” said Kelly Sosa, a senior in Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC). “That’s why I’m here.”

FCLC senior Natalie Jean-Baptiste agreed. “We pass homeless people every day but really don’t acknowledge them. Every New Yorker should do this. We would make the city a better community by acknowledging all those people who are a part of it,” she said.

While surveying the D Train platform, two volunteers spoke with a man who said he was not sure where he was going. They handed him a DHS outreach card with a number that would direct him to a 24-hour drop in station offering a night’s shelter.

All HOPE participants were instructed to ask each person they encountered whether he or she would be willing to participate in a survey, and, if affirmed, whether that person had someplace they considered “home.”

“It’s a little awkward to ask, but you just have to do it,” said Dan Drolet, an FCLC sophomore who was on his second HOPE count.

FCRH freshman Kristen Flores, a native of Dallas, said that homelessness in Texas is a problem, but at a “different level.”

“Nowadays it’s easier to fall into a homeless situation than we think,” said Flores, a National Hispanic scholar. “In this economy, it can be a matter of bad planning, or just bad luck.”

According to DHS, Fordham has consistently provided one of the largest HOPE volunteer bases of any New York educational institution. In fact, the Rose Hill campus is used as a training center for Bronx HOPE volunteers.

GSS student Frank McAlpin, a resident director in McMahon Hall, said he encouraged his residents to volunteer for the count, adding, “It’s a character-building experience to get into the community and work with those who are marginalized.”

According to Sandra Lobo Jost, director of Fordham’s Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice, Fordham had so many volunteers this year that some had to be turned away. Citywide, some 3,000 volunteers participated in all five boroughs.

Lobo-Jost encouraged volunteers to stay involved beyond one night, in the “spirit” of Dorothy Day.

“[Let’s] continue to . . . work on creating systemic change,” she said.

The event marked the fourth consecutive year that the University has provided the largest number of volunteers of any institution for the annual count of the city’s homeless population, representatives of the Bronx Citizens Advice Bureau said. The University was designated as a training center for volunteers in the Bronx by the city’s Department of Homeless Services.

Donning fleece-lined aviator hats, leg warmers, down vests and other barriers against 20-degree temperatures, each volunteer group surveyed a 20- to 30-block area from midnight to 4 a.m., questioning anyone they found on the streets, subways or in parks. Groups worked with the New York City Police Department and the Department of Homeless Services to move anyone they found living on the streets into a shelter.

“The HOPE count is a measuring stick for the city to see how well we are doing in eliminating street homelessness,” said CAB coordinator Noel Concepcion. “The people we are going to find out there tonight, in this temperature, truly are the neediest.”

During the pre-count training session, students, faculty and deans mingled in rare late-night camaraderie around community service.

“I’m here to raise awareness about the plight of the homeless and the poor in our city,” said Donna Rapaccioli, Ph.D., dean of the College of Business Administration (CBA). “Social justice is at the heart of [Fordham’s] mission; and volunteering tonight brings that mission together with our actions.”

John D. Feerick, Norris Professor of Law, director of Fordham Law School’s Feerick Center for Social Justice and a former Special Master of Family Homelessness under the Bloomberg administration, called homelessness “one of the center’s critical areas of concern.” The center, which was one of the event’s supporters at Fordham, helps arrange pro-bono services for the disenfranchised.

Dean John Feerick (left) comes prepared for the count.

Feerick joined a contingent of law students and faculty to gauge the extent of the homeless population outside of the shelter system “not by reading about it, but by seeing it ourselves,” he said.

The number of volunteers citywide was estimated at more than 2,000. A portion of the volunteers were used as decoys, posing as homeless people in survey areas to ensure the precision and accuracy of the count.

Once the information is compiled, the final number will have some bearing on federal aid made available through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Concepcion said.

Kristie Beaudoin, a sophomore at Fordham College at Rose Hill and a resident assistant at Alumni North, said she recruited freshmen for the count. “It is a good way to do community service that lasts more than one night,” she said. “The count helps for the entire year.”

Teams returned to the McGinley Center by 4 a.m., where volunteers from the University’s Community Service Program helped compile the data.

FCRH senior Christina Schwall, a four-year veteran of the HOPE count, took the cold temperatures and the late hours in stride; she said she would be back on the Fordham campus at 8 a.m., volunteering as a physics tutor for the HEOP program.

“I’ll get through it,” said the Clare Booth Luce Scholar, “and sleep afterward.”