Center for Community Engagement

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

CCE wishes everybody a happy pride month!

Pride is so important because, unfortunately, people of varying identities are still discriminated against and shamed into hiding, sometimes for their whole lives, and almost definitely, for some period of time before they come out. Everybody deserves the freedom to be their true selves with no shame or fear for their safety.

We hope that everybody gets the chance to experience the feelings of love and pride this month, whatever that means for you!

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

This week marked the beginning our 2026 Urban Fellows summer program and we’re so excited to continue to get to know our new cohort!

On Monday, the Urban Fellows explored High Falls, then went to lunch at and had the chance to meet and

On Tuesday, the fellows started their day by participating in an exercise where they identified Rochester landmarks that they recognized on a map. They soon became aware that they still had the majority of Rochester to discover

Later in the day, the fellows headed to the and listened to a presentation on how the market serves the Rochester community, presented by

Then, they went on to have lunch at and embarked on a scavenger hunt of the city!

We can’t wait for the rest of the summer with them☀️🏖️

Our Learning and Exploring at Play Program (LEAP) recently celebrated their annual LEAP graduation. This event celebrated both our LEAP RCSD students and our UR undergraduate tutors! Thanks to the hard work of our tutors and team leaders, each of our students received personalized gifts and had the opportunity to partake in exciting post-ceremony activities🎉🎁

Once our LEAP families went home for the day, we took the time to celebrate our undergraduate seniors who will graduated from the program this May. Each senior received a hand-picked book, and those who worked as team leaders received a handmade frog plush made with love by LEAP’s program manager, Katie Hardin🐸💚

Shout-out to our tutors and team leads for a great year, we will miss you over the summer! And to our seniors who are graduating, we wish you all of the best in your journey ahead🥰

A couple weeks ago, our Learning and Exploring at Play Program (LEAP) celebrated their annual LEAP Graduation. Each of our K-5 students were recognized for either their transition into the next grade up in LEAP, or in the case of the 5th graders, for moving on to bigger and better things!

Each of our LEAP students received a personalized portfolio filled with their work from the past year and designed by their partner tutor. Along with their portfolio, they also received a hand selected book📖📚

Following the ceremony portion of the event, our LEAP students, tutors, and families came together for lunch from India House and activities planned by their tutors including: a dance party, temporary tattoos, face painting, hand painting stoles for our graduating tutors, and more🎨

We will miss seeing our kids for the next few months but hope they have a summer filled with love and laughs☀️🌈⛱️

(Slide 7) 5th grade

(Slide 8) 4th grade

(Slide 9) 3rd grade

(Slide 10) 2nd grade

(Slide 11) 1st grade

(Slide 12) Kindergarten

Hinge Neighbors is offering a great volunteer opportunity for anyone who finds themselves in the Rochester area this summer🌞

If that isn’t you, spread the word to someone who might be interested & around🚴

To sign up to volunteer, email [email protected], also linked in the linktree in our bio📥

Tomorrow is the annual Day of Giving! On this day, alumni, faculty, parents, staff, students & community members donate to a place/program on campus that feels meaningful to them💙💛

We hope that you will consider supporting our work (or continuing to support us if you already have) as we enter our 3rd decade after our 20 year milestone last year!

Over the years, CCE continues to connect the University with communities beyond campus, working to benefit these communities, as well as offering experiential learning to students. We continue to extend our reach beyond campus with the intent to make our surrounding communities, our campus, ourselves, our country and the world….

Any donation amount is appreciated. The link to donate is in our bio

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Check out our new summit flyer!

There are still some spots left to register, so if you wanna come please RSVP using the link in our bio or the QR code on this flyer✉️

We hope to see you there🪻

Last but not least, we are spotlighting Sherene Yang to wrap up our 🐸🐌💖

We are so proud of our LEAP team leads and all of the other LEAP tutors who make this program possible & amazing!

We hope you’re all having a great end to the semester and will miss everyone who is graduating🎓

Happy Saturday!

Today we are highlighting Rachida Sofiani as part of our ☺️👏🏼

Check out her craft account🧶