AUBURN - Natalie Speck has dedicated the last two years of her college career helping Auburn's less fortunate, and this fall, she's enlisting a group of New Visions students to do the same.

Working with Coburn Design last year, Speck, a senior and design major at Kent State University in Ohio, helped create the Help Now Map, a document created to direct people to the various emergency, government and social agencies in Cayuga County.

And while Speck's work will help a plethora of people, she wants to do more for the Auburn community.

“If you have the ability to communicate to a large audience, you should take the opportunity to give back,” she said.

Building off her work at Coburn Design, she wants to see where people in need get their information about the agencies in Auburn. Using that data, she wants to create a 3-dimensional wayfinding system, directional signage out in the community directing people to and identifying the agencies people utilize, as part of her senior project.

“I think it will help people utilize the services Auburn provides in an effective way,” she said. “I feel that a visual way to help (is to) direct people in a concise manner. There will be no confusion and no questions about what agencies are offered at that location.”

But collecting the necessary data is a big task. Needing some help, she turned to the Cayuga-Onondaga Board of Cooperative Educational Services New Visions Teacher Education and Legal Professions classes to contribute to her project.

Beginning later this month, the two classes will visit soup kitchens and other social service agencies and ask patrons how they found out about them. As a result, students will be able to see how prevalent homelessness is in the Auburn community and have the knowledge to effect some real change.

“We felt that looking at homelessness would be the best way to start getting information,” Speck said. “If you were homeless, where would you look to get the help you need?”

This project fits into New Visions' mission of providing hands-on learning to students and augments its curriculum, teachers Natalie Scavone and Al Pola said. Students typically learn about public policy in the second half of the school year, but this year they are actually seeing it in action.

“The kids study public policy, and to have somebody who's closer to their age to show them what they are going to do is much more effective than getting the information from a book,” said Scavone, the teacher education instructor.

And by seeing the work done first-hand, the teachers believe students will be better equipped to make a difference in their community.

“Our hope is that they will be more successful in effectuating whatever change is necessary,” said Pola, the legal professions instructor.

Added Scavone, “Plus, our hope is that when they get older and settle down, they will get more involved in their community.”

Students said they are excited about the opportunity to talk to people from different walks of life then their own.

“I'm excited to see how other people live compared to how we live,” legal professions student Natalie McNabb said.

Added teacher education student Jessica Schreiner, “It'll also make us appreciate what we have and want to help them have that.”

Staff writer Alyssa Sunkin can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 239 or alyssa.sunkin@lee.net