Showing up for the City of Good Neighbors
UB social work faculty, staff, students, alumni and more for came together for a Day of Service with the City of Buffalo's Operation Clean Sweep initiative.
Photos by Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
In honor of our 90th anniversary, the School of Social Work hosted a day of service last spring in partnership with the City of Buffalo’s Operation Clean Sweep initiative. About 50 students, faculty, staff, alumni and field education partners came together to serve the neighborhood around Masten Park.
The school dedicated its efforts to the lives lost during the Tops massacre in May 2022. Volunteers assembled on Jefferson Avenue and eventually passed the supermarket on their route up the block.
“There’s something really powerful about being here in the community as a school community,” says Katie McClain-Meeder, MSW ’12, clinical associate professor and MSW program director. “We owe a lot to the City of Buffalo, and it matters that we show up.”
Kathryn Griswold, administrative field coordinator, leads a group of volunteers.
For Dean Keith A. Alford (center), celebrating the school’s 90th anniversary through service was a perfect fit with the values of the school and profession.
Volunteers filled countless bags as they collected trash along Jefferson Avenue and Best Street.
Volunteers — including Kristina Lazarro, student services advisor, and Ronald Dixon, special project manager for crime prevention, City of Buffalo — also cleaned up several vacant lots.
The day was also about camaraderie. Here, Kathryn Franco, MPH/MSW ’18, director of alumni engagement and community relations, connects with Robert Chapman, MSW ’03, executive director of the Stutzman Addiction Treatment Center.
“I was honored to work alongside such passionate changemakers,” says Jess Williams, an undergrad in the school’s community organizing and development minor. Williams is pictured, at right, with MSW student Anita Baar and political science major Natalie Wechter.