The CEL Institute collaborates with many community partners for a range of programming, including First-Year CEL, CEL & Advanced CEL, Community Initiatives, Internships, and Research. We value our partners as an integral part of the CEL experience. Community Engaged Learning encompasses three components: education, service, and reflection. Community partners provide TCNJ students with the opportunity to understand and respond to a community need while gaining hands on knowledge and experience. Below are some of our past and present community partners involved with the First-Year CEL Experience.
Arm in Arm
Arm In Arm is a place where our community comes together to make sure we all have the most basic needs of food and shelter and, as possible, the livelihood to maintain them. For four decades Mercer County families have turned to Arm In Arm for essential resources like food and financial support.
Arc Mercer
TCNJ Bonner Community Scholars host Unified Learning every week with participants from the Arc Mercer. Unified Learning is an Inclusive Classroom made up of TCNJ students and members of The Arc Mercer. The Arc Mercer is an organization that provides resources and programming for adults with disabilities. When you arrive at service, Bonner Community Scholars will do a training and presentation on the disability rights movement and ableism. You will then be an active participant in our inclusive classroom that is taught by Bonner Scholars.
Campus as a Living Lab
Campus as a Living Lab (CaLL) is a conceptual and institutional framework for using the college campus as a core space for student learning. It is also a set of principles, policies, and practices, oriented toward environmental sustainability and social justice, that facilitate interdisciplinary coordination between faculty, staff, and students. Campus as a Living Lab aims to link classwork and faculty research to campus policies and practices across multiple disciplines.
CaLL has four main goals: (1) To increase and enhance innovative, hands-on learning opportunities for students in environmental sustainability, an area of critical importance in the job market and society. (2) To improve the sustainability and attractiveness of the campus appearance and infrastructure towards fulfilling the college’s public mission by teaching and modeling the societal shifts that are needed to confront climate change, environmental injustice, and the biodiversity crisis. (3) To increase the recognition of TCNJ’s sustainability achievements. (4) To improve the continuity of learning projects and collaboration over the medium-and long-term between faculty, staff, and students
Capital City Farm
Capital City Farm is Trenton’s first commercial urban farm. The mission of Capital City Farm is to grow local, fresh, healthy foods and make them available to the Trenton community, and to engage the community through direct participation. CEL students may be helping out with weeding, moving compost, farm clean up, and harvesting produce.
Children’s Futures
Created in 2001 by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Children’s Futures works across Central Jersey to ensure that all children and families get off to a healthy start in life. At our core, we aim to increase opportunities for health and wellness and to ward off health and social problems that can lead to a lifetime of illness and dependency.
CYO – East State Street Center
The Catholic Youth Organization (CYO of Mercer County) is a public benefit community organization that enhances the lives of Greater Mercer County youth and their families, by providing affordable, quality, educational and recreational services. Rooted in the Catholic Tradition, the CYO provides these services in an inclusive and non-discriminatory manner respecting the culture and faith of all.
East Trenton Collaborative
The East Trenton Collaborative, operated by New Jersey Community Capital, is a community organizing and development initiative in the East Trenton neighborhood of Trenton’s North Ward. By facilitating conversations and action on community priorities, we engage partners, support businesses, and build the power of residents to make East Trenton a great place to live, work, and play.
Ewing Community Garden
The Ewing Community Garden is located on Whitehead Road Extension, at the back of Sherbrooke Park. Community members can join the Ewing Community Garden to have their own garden plot to tend to and grow their own produce. The Township works with the community member to keep the garden running. For service, students will help out in the garden and task may include weeding, mulching, laying compost or other similar tasks.
Ewing Senior Center at Hollowbrook Community Center
Senior nutrition services are provided by the Mercer County Office on Aging, through the Mercer County Nutrition Project for the Elderly. This project provides a comprehensive, multi-purpose program to the Senior Citizens of the county. This program centers around thirteen nutrition sites serving nutritionally balanced meals Monday through Friday at the noon hour. The program serves senior citizens who are 60 years of age or over and their younger spouses.
Some CEL Students will be assisting with their senior luncheon program. This can involve serving meals to participants, assisting with set-up/break down of the event, and assisting with tasks from staff and or elders. Some CEL students will help out with their food pantry during its open hours. This may be serving members of the community, organizing donations or whatever help is needed during this busy time.
Garden State Woman Education Foundation
Garden State Woman is a network of women helping women. To extend that network, the Garden State Woman Education Foundation (501 © 3) was founded in 2007 to help New Jersey businesswomen and emerging young women leaders become all that they can be. They provide career and personal life guidance and important connections by: organizing diversified educational networking events, generating important content on gswoman.com, and providing financial and mentoring support to our scholars.
Hopewell Valley Food Pantry
At the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020, Pennington Borough, Hopewell Borough, Hopewell Township, HVRSD, and the Hopewell Valley YMCA created the Hopewell Valley Mobile Food Pantry to assist those that found themselves in need of a helping hand. Using the school bus system and all volunteer workers, the Pantry collects, sorts, packages, and delivers groceries and fresh produce weekly to neighbors throughout Hopewell. During this date, the HVMFP will be transitioning from their winter operations to their spring/summer operations. CEL students will assist in cleaning out their gym space located at the Hopewell Valley School District, which will include wiping, cleaning, and organizing supplies and materials, and helping prepare for their outdoor operations.
Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund (LALDEF)
The Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. (LALDEF) is a grassroots nonprofit organization formed to defend the civil rights of Latin Americans and facilitate their access to health care and education, as well as to advance cross-cultural understanding in the Mercer County area.
Maker’s Place
The Maker’s Place is a diaper bank and Hope Center sponsored by United Methodists of Greater New Jersey. We are a faith-based nonprofit. The Maker’s Place was launched with the broad vision of becoming a resource center that connects neighbors with neighbors in diverse and inclusive communities, by responding to the gifts and aspirations of people living in poverty. Through our Diaper Depot, a diaper distribution program, we give away thousands of free diapers each month to families who struggle to provide enough diapers for their children throughout the city of Trenton.
While volunteering with us, you will primarily help us bundle diapers. We place the diapers in bundles based on the size of the diaper to help fill the gap and end diaper needs for families living in poverty and/or struggling to provide diapers for their little ones to be healthy, safe, and dry. You may also assist us with other tasks depending on our needs that week. Other tasks might be filling the requests for diapers made by families, packing diapers to go out into the community, or helping us to organize our inventory.
Mercer County Parks Commission
The Mercer County Park Commission has over 10,000 acres of parks and open space land to care for. The stewardship team works to remove invasive species, do large scale native plantings, and keep our parks clean. With so much land to manage we appreciate help! TCNJ CEL students will work hand in hand with our Land Stewards to clean up and manage our parks and reforestation areas by picking up trash, collecting tree planting tubes washed away in Hurricane Ida, or removing invasive plants.
Mercer Street Friends
Mercer Street Friends respond to the needs of the community to build alliances that will have the most meaningful impact in addressing issues of poverty. We provide a range of integrated services that build community, nurture self-worth and independence, and offer resources for children, families, and communities to overcome poverty and its lasting effects.
Through the Community Schools, MSF strives to improve students’ academic performance, attendance, and social/emotional well-being. TCNJ students will be separated into two groups and support the SHUP (Send Hunger Packing) initiative at one of these schools (Gregory Elementary or Rivera Elementary School) through preparing and distributing weekend meal bags to students and families and assisting staff with other programs of their Community School Initiatives.
Neighborhood Improvement Association
TCNJ students serve the NIA by volunteering with their Illegal Dumping Campaign where they help clean up trash from illegal dumping in Trenton.
NJ Watershed Ambassadors Program
For the past 20 years, the AmeriCorps New Jersey Watershed Ambassadors Program has played an important role in raising awareness of how human activities can affect water quality, especially in the most densely populated state in the nation. Each year, a new group of 20 Watershed Ambassadors engages with community members, channeling awareness into action.
Rescue Mission
The Rescue Mission feeds those who are hungry, houses those who are homeless, counsels those seeking recovery, and provides life-changing opportunities. The Rescue Mission provides The Shelter, Behavioral Health Center, Vocational Development, The New Direction Program, Supportive Housing, Outreach, Thrift Store, and Food Pantry. Their ultimate goal is to help put an end to homelessness – one person at a time.
Sprout U School of the Arts
Sprout U School of the Arts engages children from infancy to grade 9 in joyful, meaningful and creative learning through an adventurous, experiential curriculum. Our diverse community works collaboratively cultivating excellence in academics, character, and performing arts as we prepare our students for life-long learning. We are part of a larger community of educators, dedicated to creating new and vital visions of learning.
T.C.H.S. All-Years Scholars
T.C.H.S All-Years Scholars mission is to provide urban children with mentorship, mental health development and fundamental basketball education.
TCNJ Campus Garden
The TCNJ Campus Garden is a project of the Environmental Sustainability Council and the Bonner Institute at TCNJ. It was initiated by students, staff, and faculty who wanted a place on campus to grow food for community members, to teach about growing fruits and vegetables, and to provide an outdoor space for campus community engagement. Students will help out with weeding, harvesting, and other necessary tasks in the garden. Gloves and bug spray will be available at the garden.
TDI Connect
TDI Connect refurbishes computers and laptops donated by companies and schools, and distributes the computers in collaborations with Trenton non-profits to individuals and groups who do not currently have internet access. The donated computers are then refurbished by technically trained volunteers.
Trenton Circus Squad
Trenton Circus Squad is a non-profit organization that inspires young people to take big leaps in life. Through our free circus programs, squad members learn how to cooperate, push themselves and serve their community – all through the astonishing practice of circus arts.Squad members learn physical techniques, life skills and build trust with teens from other neighborhoods.
They lead community engagement through workshops and performances with younger children and families. It’s an often breathtaking experience filled with exercise, learning and joyful laughter for kids of all ages. CEL Students will help organize supplies and equipment, help with general maintenance of spaces, and assist with other administrative tasks.