Multiple sites are chosen where the university community volunteers with members of the participating local organizations. The volunteers gather at UMass Boston after completing their projects to celebrate their accomplishments, recognize their efforts and reinforce the connection between service and learning. The event is sponsored by UMass Boston's Service Learning Advisory Committee and Leadership Development Program. The Boston campus program utilizes a team model of collective leadership development by which twenty to twenty-five adult immigrants and refugee from diverse ethnic communities learn and work together during the academic year. Jean Marc Jean-Baptiste Urban Harbors Institute Coastweeks Program Coastweeks is an international celebration of the coast.
Activities range from lectures and whale watches to beach cleanups and bird watches.
Coastweeks is held annually during September and October. The program has recently been expanded to cover all six New England states. The project, initiated in 1994, is directed by Ellen Bruce, an attorney and faculty member with the Gerontology Institute. The program is staffed by volunteers. The Project has become a model for providing service over the telephone and to date, no other agency in the state, or New England for that matter, provides this type of in-depth counseling and case investigation.