Bentley University
EN-9: Community Partnerships

Students from the Bentley Service Learning and Civic Engagement Center support the Waltham Boys and Girls Club. The Waltham Boys & Girls Club After School Program involves connecting Bentley students with local youths in the Waltham area through the Boys & Girls Club. From Monday through Thursday, Bentley students help club members with their homework, interact with club members through sports and games, and act as role models and mentors.

Bentley's Service Learning and Civic Engagement Center has a collaborative relationship with the Chesterbrook afterschool program. Together with the Waltham police department they set up the board of Directors for this program and continue to grow and support the program. Bentley University students go to the Chesterbrook Housing Complex to help children ages 7 to 16 with their homework, skill/team building activities as well as being a mentor. This program provides children with positive role models from the Bentley community and gives the kids inspiration and encouragement to do well. The Bentley students provide lessons to the students such as “Money Matters: Make it Count” which promotes financial responsibility and independence. Bentley has been working with Chesterbrook for a number of years. This is only one of numerous examples of Bentley's community outreach programs.

We work with the three low-income housing developments in Waltham: Prospect Hill, Dana Court, and Chesterbrook. We have multiple programs at these sites including after school programs, mentoring, teen centers, and ESOL classes. In the last 2 years we had a garden program at the Prospect Hill location. We currently collaborate with Healthy Waltham at these locations to teach kids and families about healthy food and cooking. Over the years, we also have established Boards of Directors, largely consisting of Bentley alum, and we have Tenant Boards and teen input avenues as well. Through this work, we have brought together Brandeis University, Mount Ida College, Bentley University, Waltham Housing Authority, Waltham Police, and other city offices to create transformative programs in these three highly underserved neighborhoods.

Started by Bentley students, BUIILD is a week-long initiative to raise awareness about global poverty and to raise money to help bring sustainable development to communities in poorer regions of the world. In its inaugural year, BUIILD raised over $10,000, enough to build an elementary school in Ecuador, and during the second year students began raising money toward bringing a sustainable clean water source to the same community. The goal of BUIILD is to provide the Bentley community with the opportunity to learn about global poverty, while raising money toward holistic development needs, such as alternative income, water, health, agriculture, and education in order to help bring sustainable development to communities overseas.