{"id":1230,"date":"2021-03-01T17:55:43","date_gmt":"2021-03-01T16:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.servethecityleuven.be\/?p=1230"},"modified":"2025-08-19T08:44:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T06:44:09","slug":"contributing-to-the-local-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.servethecityleuven.be\/nl\/2021\/03\/01\/contributing-to-the-local-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Contributing to the local community"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cMy first year in Leuven was filled with the thrill brought about by this new chapter in my life. I engaged in common endeavors, such as discovering the city, the food, attending concerts and other cultural events. But after a while, the fairytale faded away, and the novelty was replaced by a real need of belonging, of connecting with local people on a more profound level, getting a grasp on what their necessities were and how I could contribute to my new community. I came across Serve the City, which was the only NGO at that time that was accepting non-Dutch speakers for their volunteering opportunities and I registered for my first project! I really didn\u2019t know what to expect from a cooking volunteering day, but I had the chance to experience a very fun and heartwarming Saturday together with a bunch of expats who were all looking for a chance to interact with others. Soon after that, I decided to join their project leaders team and be part of the organization on a deeper level. Since then, I am trying to organize this kind of projects myself. It\u2019s very easy to combine your full-time job with volunteering for Serve the City and the variety of projects and communities we serve is really the ingredient that keeps me engaged. I met so many new people, I had the chance to collaborate with local organizations and experience activities I would normally not do in my weekends: cooking for people in need, gardening, painting, cleaning and decorating or being part of environmental initiatives.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Andreea, Project Leader, Serve the City<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Have a volunteering story of your own? Write to us at contact@servethecityleuven.be<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMy first year in Leuven was filled with the thrill brought about by this new chapter in my life. I engaged in common endeavors, such as discovering the city, the food, attending concerts and other cultural events. But after a while, the fairytale faded away, and the novelty was replaced by a real need of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":1244,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecityleuven.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecityleuven.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecityleuven.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecityleuven.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecityleuven.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecityleuven.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1925,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecityleuven.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230\/revisions\/1925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecityleuven.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecityleuven.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecityleuven.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecityleuven.be\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}