Lafayette College’s Pre-Orientation Service Program, also known as POSP, provides incoming students with the opportunity to participate in service work and engage with the Easton, Pennsylvania, community beyond College Hill.
Every August, around 30 soon-to-be first-year students come to Lafayette’s campus the week before classes, spending their mornings volunteering at various local community centers and their evenings doing activities around campus. The group is joined by another group of approximately 30 returning Lafayette students, who pair with these first-year students and guide them through the week.
POSP is split into four different camps: Kids in the Community, the Firth Youth Center, the Urban Garden Initiative and Aging Populations.
Both Kids in the Community and Firth Youth Center center their work around children — Kids in the Community runs a free summer camp at Paxinosa Elementary School, while students volunteering for Firth Youth Center drive to the center in Phillipsburg, New Jersey and work with slightly older children.
“Even within such a short time period of only going three days of the year, you’re able to form such a deep connection with the kids,” said Grace Voss ’26, a co-director of the Kids in the Community camp.
The Aging Populations camp works with the Gracedale Nursing Home in Nazareth, Pennsylvania.
“There’s a need in this community, not only in aging populations as a whole but specifically Gracedale,” said Grace Comfort ‘25, a co-director of the Aging Populations camp. “It’s owned by Northampton County, so there’s not a lot of staffing or resources and they were hit very hard with COVID, and so I saw that there was definitely a need for engagement that Landis could fill.”
At the Gracedale Nursing Home, students participate in crafts and cognitive strengthening activities with the residents.
The Urban Garden Initiative camp works with several partners, including LaFarm, Easton Garden Works and Easton Urban Farm, to help combat food insecurity within Easton.
“I think Easton is really special because it has a very vibrant community of urban gardens and farms and those arose to help combat the symptom of its status as a food desert,” said Selma O’Malley ‘26, a co-director of the Urban Garden Initiative.
“Working directly on garden farms to help combat food insecurity, and just food injustice in general, is something that I really enjoy,” she continued.
According to its members, POSP seeks to emphasize the difference between community service that is performed without deeper reflection and true community engagement, in which both students and residents of the area benefit from service.
“When we help the community, we are trying to break down that power dynamic and not think of ourselves as being benefactors or anything like that — just seeing ourselves as just people who are trying to work together to tackle problems,” O’Malley said.
Paulina Royzman ‘27, a co-director of the Aging Populations camp, echoed this sentiment.
“There is that understanding that you’re not just performing a service for the sake of performing it or coming into it with a savior complex, you’re working directly with the people whose communities you’re visiting,” Royzman said.
Jodi Fowler, the associate director of civic leadership programs and overseer of POSP, hopes the program inspires students to break out of the Lafayette bubble.
“People don’t know, they just don’t know. It’s this tiny little city, but there’s so much,” said Fowler. “Get out there. It’s a whole world in Easton. The food is amazing. The people are amazing.”
Disclaimer: Managing Editor Selma O’Malley ’26 did not contribute writing or reporting.