Over the weekend, student government hosted the 12th annual “Back the Bend,” a campus-wide day of service in the South Bend community.
Carlondrea “Lala” Petty, director of community outreach in student government, coordinated 10 projects associated with Back the Bend.
“For me, Back the Bend is really about outlining our mission to serve,” Petty said. “And to have that beautiful exchange of community and the hopes of fostering — which I truly believe that we did — fostering a relationship between both [Notre Dame and South Bend].”
Planning for Back the Bend began last year and ramped up at the start of this semester. Petty met with long-standing community partners, such as Unity Gardens and South Bend Venues Parks and Arts, and also identified new organizations to partner with.
Petty said she wanted to connect with organizations that Notre Dame students might not know about, such as Transformation Ministries, a faith-based community center, or Green Bridge Growers, a sustainable farm that employs people on the autism spectrum.
When contacting community partners, Petty said she tried to emphasize relationship-building between Notre Dame and South Bend.
“I really wanted people to feel like this is a community,” Petty said. “I also wanted the students to feel that way so they can go into South Bend with the same mindset that I did with choosing the organizations and then the organizations receiving them in that same manner.”
One long-standing Back the Bend project is Mulch Madness, an annual service project that focuses on mitigating the impact of lead poisoning in South Bend.
Mulch Madness began in response to a Reuters article that compared the rates of lead poisoning across the country to those of Flint, Michigan. The city made national headlines in 2014 after its children were exposed to lead in contaminated drinking water.
In one South Bend census tract 1.5 miles southwest of Notre Dame’s campus, Reuters found that 31% of small children tested from 2005 to 2015 had elevated levels of lead in their blood — more than six times Flint’s rate.
Mulching helps combat lead poisoning by putting a barrier between lead in the soil and residents, thereby reducing the risk of exposure. In addition, the Mulch Madness team offers lead testing for paint, water and soil.
This year, sophomores Alex Brandt and Sean Miller headed the Mulch Madness team.
Brandt and Miller coordinated with ND Landscaping, which provides free transportation for the mulch, and the South Bend Department of Organic Resources, which provides the mulch itself. Marya Lieberman’s lab within the Notre Dame Lead Innovation Team also helps with the lead testing across South Bend.
Because mulch rotation is most effective if done every three to five years, the Mulch Madness team rotates which areas of South Bend they focus on during Back the Bend. This year, they mulched in the Riverpark neighborhood near Nuner Elementary, as well as in the Southeast neighborhood.
“We chose Nuner specifically for being an elementary school as we knew that lead poisoning affected children the most,” Miller said. “So we mulched their whole entire school landscaping and then around the neighborhood, too.”
At each site, team captains canvass door-to-door, asking residents if they want mulching or a lead testing kit. If residents are interested, they mulch and take a soil sample back to the lead lab at Notre Dame, in addition to providing information on grants available to combat lead poisoning.
“The Notre Dame bubble can seem pretty small,” Brandt said. “But if we’re a bigger part of the South Bend community, we better get to know them. The residents better get to know us. And we’re helping each other in this process.”
According to Petty, over 500 students signed up to volunteer, and turnout was high despite the cold weather.
“The students were troopers, honestly,” Petty said. “They worked in the rain, they worked in the cold … I have an overflow of messages from the organizational managers saying how amazing the students were.”
Back the Bend ended with taco catering, courtesy of Junbuggies food trucks, in the Robinson Community Learning Center (RCLC).
In the morning, student body president Daniel Jung and vice president Aidan Rezner lead a tour of Notre Dame’s campus for senior citizens from South Bend.
“The senior citizen tour actually went to Notre Dame and got to experience the Basilica, the Grotto … and then the Notre Dame students were going out to South Bend, so it’s like a flip-flop,” Petty said.
The tour group gathered with the student volunteers at the RCLC, in what Petty described as a beautiful moment of community.
“My hope is that students will see there is so much outside of campus — places you can volunteer, where you can learn, where you can bring ideas to, where you can work,” Petty said. “Really just creating that foundation where students feel comfortable going out into South Bend.”
12th annual Back the Bend connects students and community organizations
Courtesy of Carlondrea Petty
Courtesy of Sean Miller
