Short History of Street Outreach

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From:
To:
Date:
Subject:

"Nicholas Mostaghim"
"Rhea Chandran"
6/26/2021 1:05:29 PM
Re: Archiving Street Outreach Materials

Dear Rhea,
Thank you for your interest in increasing the amount of documentation about student groups in the college
archive! I think that this is an awesome initiative.
Here is a short history of Street Outreach, from what I have been made aware of: Street Outreach is a Haverford
club founded in the '80s (I think it was around then?) by the Men's Cross Country team, intended to help serve
the less privileged population in Philly. From what I am aware, they would make sandwiches and hand them out
in Philly. Over the past 40 years or so, I'm sure that many Street Outreach initiatives have been forgotten or
lost, unfortunately. More recently, Street Outreach began a partnership with Prevention Point, which is a needle
exchange center and community shelter in West Philly. A portion of the club would drive to Prevention Point on
Saturdays and would make breakfast for individuals who go there for food and shelter, while the other portion of
the club would make sandwiches on Wednesday evenings and drive them to Philly to hand out. Finally, when
the COVID pandemic occurred, Mallory Kastner, Zach Broadman (both class of 2021), and myself realized that
we had to change how Street Outreach operated in order to continue our community service activities during
that period. Thus, we decided to involve the Haverford community more in our activities; we set up fundraisers,
drives, held blanket-making events, and increased our social media presence, all in order to continue serving
the West Philly community, albeit in a different manner than before. During Fall 2021 and onwards, we plan to
continue most of our newer activities, as well as (hopefully!) resuming our more hands-on forms of community
service.
I am copying the other (current) co-heads of Street Outreach on this email, in the hope that they will be able to
provide you with information that they may think would be useful. For example, I do not have any social media
myself, but they may be able to provide you with some posts from this past year that they think could be of use. I
am sure that they have many ideas of things that might provide future students an understanding of what Street
Outreach was and is!
I am also copying Mallory and Zach in case they have any photos, resources, or stories that they would like to
share (as well as maybe correcting my "history" above). I hope this is okay with you!
Best,
Bayan
On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 10:50 AM Rhea Chandran wrote:
Dear Bayan,
I hope you are having a nice summer. My name is Rhea Chandran, and I am in the Class of 2023. This
summer, I am working on a documenting student life internship at the library. A big part of this is making sure
that the work that student groups do is preserved and accessible for future generations.
I am emailing to request copies of any materials that Street Outreach produced this year. This could include
anything from emails sent to group members announcing meetings, an itinerary of all scheduled meetings,
screenshots of social media posts, photographs from club events, or anything else that might provide future
students an understanding of what Street Outreach is. Additionally, if you are able to write a short history of
Street Outreach or have a description of the role the group plays on campus, these write-ups would provide
essential context for any material you are able to share.
Thank you in advance for considering this request, as it serves to reduce the current severe
underrepresentation of student voices in the college archive. If you have any questions, please feel free to
reach out through email or text! My number is below.
7/28/2021

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Looking forward to hearing from you soon!
Best,
Rhea
-Rhea Chandran
Haverford College Class of 2023
Phone: (630)-306-1635
Email: rchandran@haverford.edu

7/28/2021