Antioch College alumni gather on campus up to four times a year as part of the ongoing Volunteer Work Project, a gift of labor from alumni to the college that began in 1986. Pictured in the Coretta Scott King Center in March during the spring VWP meet-up were Louise Meller, Megan Trollander and Helen Welford, who were part of a crew of alumni followed by the News as they worked and talked about the history and meaning of the VWP. (Photo by Lauren "Chuck" Shows)
Antioch College alumni’s Volunteer Work Project turns 40
- Published: July 27, 2026
On a cold Monday morning in late March this year, a group of about a dozen alumni gathered in Antioch College’s Coretta Scott King Center. The space served as both breakfast buffet and planning and coordination forum for the spring Volunteer Work Project, in which alumni gather on campus to give back to the institution that helped shape them as young adults. This year marks the VWP’s 40th anniversary.
Helen Welford, one of the alumni cooks, fielded compliments on homemade sausage rolls as the old friends cleared their plates and talked across one another, reviving stories from decades past. Director of Facilities Joshua Miller drifted in as coffee cups were drained and began listing the work waiting around campus. There were light bulbs to change out in North Hall, ceiling tiles to replace in Birch Hall, yard waste to clear and office work to complete.
Shannon McCarville, then Antioch’s director of alumni relations and communications, helped divide up the crew.
“Let’s bombard her with stories of VWP and how fun it is,” McCarville told the group, referring to this reporter’s presence at the table.
McCarville, a 2002 graduate, had welcomed the volunteers the night before and would help shepherd them through the week’s work. This month, alumni returned to campus for their pre-reunion VWP work, though they did so without McCarville, who was fired in June.
Staffing and leadership changes aren’t new to those who participate in VWP; as an alumni panel recounted in an oral history of VWP in 2024, they’ve continued to show up on campus through financial strain, closure and reopening, and everything in between, always looking ahead. As longtime VWP volunteer Penny Storm told alumni in 2024: “While you’re [at Reunion] reminiscing about your past, we’re planning our future.”
The VWP had its roots in the 25th reunion of the class of 1960 in 1985. At the time, it was customary for the honored class to present the college with a gift. During the 2024 panel, Peggy Erskine — who died later that year — recalled that she, Mac Palmer and Bob Press looked around at years of deferred maintenance, including a leaking roof on Birch Hall, and began talking on the steps of McGregor Hall about what their class could give.
Many had growing family expenses and didn’t have much money to spare — but they did have time, practical knowledge and memories of the work projects that had once been part of orientation for incoming Antioch students. Their class gift, they decided, would be an annual alumni work project.
The first project, in 1986, drew 37 people, who gave 400 hours over four days. Alumni raised $1,200 toward a roof for Birch Hall, with the college contributing another $1,800. Alumni renovated 10 of 15 rooms in Rice Hall and cleaned the bathrooms.
“The usual role alumni play in supporting their alma mater is to give money,” 1972 alumnus Jon Baker said in 2024. “One of the things that makes Antioch alumni unique is the donation of their hands, backs and brains in making real and tangible improvements to the college and its facilities.”
When alumni were told in 2007 that their planned campus work week was canceled ahead of the college’s announced closure, they came anyway, shifting their labor to Glen Helen, repairing windows and doors at Birch Manor. When the college reopened in 2011, alumni volunteers transformed the garage of the former campus fire department, Maples, into a workshop, repairing discarded saws, drill presses, lights and other equipment they found around campus. By 2024, about 900 people had participated, making classroom repairs, refinishing desks, restoring windows, painting dormitories.
“Love isn’t love unless there’s action involved, and we love Antioch,” Storm said.
Antioch alumni returned to campus the week of July 12, ahead of the annual reunion, to participate in the summer Volunteer Work Project. At top, Martha Rose, Libby Arny and Evelyn Genainger prepared for some deep cleaning, and Greta Triestman and Lauren Gjessing reinforced floorboards in the Foundry Theater. Below, an alumni volunteer surveyed the outside of the long-closed Miles Budd Goodman Amphitheater. (Photos by Reilly Dixon)
In 2013, as the Foundry Theater underwent renovation, alumni volunteers salvaged maple flooring from Curl Gymnasium’s west gym and rebuilt it as a sprung floor in the Foundry’s dance studio. When alumni gathered this March for the spring Volunteer Work Project, it was just after a campus boiler failure that flooded the Foundry, destroying carpeting in the building’s entry, stage flooring in the auditorium and the maple flooring volunteers had built 13 years earlier.
“It’s just heartbreaking when you have to go back and replace what you already did in the first place,” said longtime volunteer Megan Trollander.
The alumni were ready to jump back in and get started on repairing the Foundry that day, but with the heat system still down and awaiting parts, the building wasn’t yet ready. So, they turned to what could be done: This reporter helped pick up downed limbs littering the Antioch Hall lawn as volunteers headed to survey Antioch Hall’s long-closed Kelly Hall. Just a few days earlier, at its March 19 “State of the College” event, Antioch had announced that Antioch Hall would be restored and reoccupied, with Kelly Hall expected to reopen after nearly two decades of closure.
At meals, the week’s assignments were braided with older stories and news of present lives. Alumni talked about children, jobs, former classmates and the routes they had traveled since leaving Antioch. They compared memories and gently disputed dates.
The meals themselves were part of the volunteers’ contribution. The cooks pay for much of the food and plan menus weeks in advance, working in the compact Coretta Scott King Center kitchen, in part on a stove donated by an alumna. After the final meal, Welford said, the larger crew comes back to mop floors, wipe counters and put away tables and chairs.
“The whole crew comes in to help us put the kitchen to bed,” she said.
The crew that gathered in March was a small portion of what they called “the usual suspects,” almost all of whom graduated decades ago. These days, the gathered alumni said, medical concerns and family responsibilities keep some longtime volunteers away; other former stalwarts have died.
“I can’t keep doing this forever, right?” said playwright Robin Rice, who graduated in 1964.
Ralph Overton, of the Class of ’61, one of the longest-serving volunteers, is in his 90s and, as McCarville told the News in March, “cannot be stopped.”
But the current group said they hope that younger alumni, current students and community members will come out to campus and work beside them — and participation doesn’t require an Antioch degree.
“All you need to do is care about the friggin’ college,” Trollander said.
At left, Antioch Farm Manager Bruce Linebaugh delivered fresh produce to alumni volunteers in March; the same day, volunteers surveyed Antioch Hall with the intention of vacuuming Kelly Hall, which the College announced this spring is set to be renovated and reopened. (Photos by Lauren “Chuck” Shows)
The assembled group believe Antioch’s spirit didn’t end with their own generations, but endures in the most important place: the minds and hearts of current students. At dinner, Rice recalled meeting two current Antioch students in New York, where she lives.
“They were interning in New York this year, and they’re just as wonderful as always,” she said.
They’re the reason, the volunteers said, that they keep returning through disappointment, uncertainty and the knowledge that some work may eventually have to be done again.
“There are enough people in town, I hope, who still care about [the college] enough to want to help,” Trollander said. “But I’ve also run into people that go, ‘Well, why are you still giving money and volunteering for the college? It’s just going to close down, you know that.’ And my response is: ‘If it does close down, it ain’t gonna be my fault.’”
Contact: chuck@ysnews.com
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