Annie Cheng

How it started

In middle school, I spent one week of each August attending a sleepaway camp in Philadelphia, called Project Brother Love. We would volunteer at a different organization (Sunday Breakfast Rescue Mission, Philabundance, Whosoever Gospel, etc.) each day. There was nothing quite like weeding derelict basketball courts, or picking up diapers and used needles for hours at a time, in the sweltering city heat. Though I found the manual labor to be quite exhausting, the organizations I visited made a lasting impact on how I viewed my community and how I would try to help it.

In high school I tried to give back in my own ways. I ran a nonprofit called Origami for Hope, through which I would fold origami bouquets, boutonnieres, and corsages for school dances, and donate proceeds to UNICEF. By the time I graduated, we had raised over $1600 cumulatively. I was also president of Book Bridge Club, a coalition of high school orchestra students who would perform solo and chamber repertoire at retirement homes across the region, for the residents, free of charge.

At Penn, surrounded by the city of Philadelphia, I found myself coming back to the organizations I had visited in middle school. My favorite has always been the Metropolitan Area Neighborhood Nutrition Alliance (MANNA), which provides medically-tailored meals for patients living with severe illness and medical dietary restrictions. MANNA not only plays a vital and sustaining role in our communities, but also has a wonderful volunteering culture. To work at MANNA is to find oneself surrounded by Philly's most kind and generous residents -- which is probably why I keep going back. To date I have logged over a hundred hours at MANNA.

Organizations

Trying to put CVs and resumes together made me take a step back and realize: my volunteer history is quite scattered. My general attitude towards community service is that I should help out wherever I can; MANNA is perhaps the only long-term organization I have here. Besides MANNA, this list seems to touch on: sustainability, public health, political outreach, and student life.

• PCDC, Sunray, & Vietlead COVID vaccination site volunteer

• I assisted with vaccine registration, Mandarin translation, directing human traffic, and sanitation -- basically everything except administering the vaccine itself!

• Philadelphia County Board of Elections - Majority Inspector

• Just running my local polling site (ward 05, division 31). I worked here for both primary and general elections, including the 2020 presidential election.

• Penn Leads the Vote research fellow

• Dipping my toes into the world of political science research! Analyzing which email/social media strategies are most effective for voter engagement. I specifically worked with data from Motivote, a rewards-based platform that offered raffle prizes in exchange for users registering to vote.

• College peer advisor

• Served as peer advisor for a cohort of 8 freshmen. Held one-on-one meetings for course planning, major advice; also lead campus tours and group hangouts.

• Penn Moves

• Worked with Residential & Hospitality Services to collect excess clothes, furniture, etc. for donation to Goodwill during move-out at the end of the semester. An average of 52,000 pounds of donations are collected every year.

• Penn Move-in Green

• Assist with move-in and educate incoming students on the recycling/composting program at Penn. (Did you know that Penn now accepts flexible plastic packaging? Now I don't have to go to Target to recycle all my plastic bags...!)

• Penn Park Farm

• Weeding, tilling, and other forms of manual labor at Penn's very own organic farm! Surprisingly calming and therapeutic, despite the physical intensity.

• Penn Urban Farming and Sustainability Fellowship

• Researched practices for advancing food justice and sustsainable urban agriculture for the Penn Park Farm. Worked to provide affordable organic produce to community members, especially first-generation low-income students suffering from food insecurity.

And here's a very short list of things that arent technically volunteer work, but I was not doing it for the scant hourly pay, so I personally think of these as volunteering:

• Teaching assistant for Phys 150 (Principles of Physics I: Mechanics and Wave Motion)
• Student Disability Services note-taker for Astr 212 (Introduction to Astrophysics II)

Hopefully I will be updating this page as I volunteer at more organizations in the future!