NYC Gazette

For the holiday season, Gabriella Lawal, a Global Liberal Studies student at NYU, initiated a service project in Paris. On November 28, she gathered fellow students to make sandwiches for Serve the City, an organization aiding refugees and the unhoused in Paris.

“I thought, how can we celebrate the spirit of Thanksgiving here? How can we give back?” said Gabriella, a junior from Houston involved with NYU Paris's student council. She collaborated with the Asian Heritage Lumieres Club to promote this volunteering opportunity.

Serve the City supplied ingredients for over 100 sandwiches made by students. The group also decorated eggs and assembled care packages containing toiletries.

“It’s important to give back, especially being here for a year. It can be hard to immerse yourself into the community, especially when I don’t speak French fluently,” Gabriella remarked. “It wasn’t a Thanksgiving event, but it felt like it because we were giving back to the community.”

NYU students worldwide are engaging in similar volunteer efforts. In Prague, they assist local Roma children and Ukrainian refugees through cookie decorating events organized by the Organization of Help for Refugees.

In Madrid, NYU hosted a drive for flood victims in Spain under "Let’s Help Valencia," collecting essential items for affected residents.

Spencer Mulvaney from Gallatin volunteered with Techno in Buenos Aires to build homes in Concordia. “I volunteer my time because it gives me a sense of purpose,” he stated.

In Buenos Aires as well, Nina Lanzillotta from Steinhardt supported music education at Isauro Arancibia educational center and conducted seminars on emotional intelligence. “We’re working with students who come from some level of trauma,” Nina explained.

Meanwhile, NYU students in Washington DC partnered with Anacostia Watershed Society to clean up along the Anacostia River and have been involved with Martha's Table Joyful Market program since 2018.