The Primaveras is a multilingual initiative that celebrates and honors the diversity and resilience of communities in Marin County. Grounded in the symbolism of life, flourishing, and nourishment, the initiative brings together community members of all ages to read together, share stories, articulate dreams and hopes, and co-create visions for the present and the future. It originally started at the South Novato Library branch as a day of celebrating the Latinx culture and reading for emergent bilingual families, and now has morphed into a multicultural, multi-organization collaboration that includes Dominican, other Marin County Free Library branches, Asian American Alliance of Marin, XRLibraries, etc.  The Primaveras’ 2026 theme of Climate Resilience further brings partnerships with  California State Coastal Conservancy and Point Blue Conservation Science.

As part of ongoing collective effort to address the issue of social isolation amongst the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) senior population in Marin County, Dominican faculty and staff Dr. Emily Wu and service-learning students participate in this Asian American Alliance of Marin (AAAM) led, multi-stakeholder initiative.  Currently, there are several weekly social gatherings to support AAPI-identified seniors who need language assistance and/or need culturally-appropriate socio-emotional connections. The groups meet weekly at different locations. AAPI Connection Circle is a social space at the Marin YMCA that is open not only to the current YMCA members, but also the general public.  AAPI Social Gathering @Vivalon is a collaboration between Dominican, AAAM, Marin County Health and Human Services BRIDGE (Behavioral, Recovery, Integrated, and Dedicated to Growth and Excellence) program, and Vivalon Active Aging, and the group meets at Vivalon’s healthy aging campus in San Rafael. A third group that meets regularly in Marin City is expected to start in 2026. 

A multi-stakeholder initiative implemented by Dominican faculty member Dr. Lucia Leon in partnership with Marin County Public Defenders Office, Legal Aid of Marin, and Canal Alliance’s Immigrant Legal Services. The project focuses on supporting Canal residents in obtaining driver’s licenses. Dominican bilingual Spanish speaking students support residents in understanding required documentation, preparing for DMV processes and tests, and access reliable guidance, reducing barriers to mobility and preventing legal or financial vulnerability tied to unlicensed driving.

Fourth graders from Laurel Dell Elementary School were invited to explore a guiding question: what bridges, pathways, and gateways can lead from home and school to college and beyond, and how Dominican University of California can help. This project grew from a collaboration among Y-PLAN at UC Berkeley, San Rafael’s Youth in Arts, and Dominican’s Service-Learning and La Vida Dominican programs. Led by Dr. Shirl Buss from Y-PLAN, Dominican service-learners accompanied students as they created poems, drawings, models, and games envisioning educational pathways. Students visited Dominican’s campus and concluded by presenting their work to university leaders and families. Each Laurel Dell student received a certificate and a $200 scholarship, reflecting Dominican’s long-term commitment as a Hispanic- and minority-serving institution. (See more about this initiative HERE.)

This project was a community participatory research project focused on improving public safety in the Canal, an issue first identified as one of three central concerns among Canal residents in a previous PAR collaboration with Dominican University of CA (Voces del Canal, 2012). Dr. Jennifer Lucko, who teaches Dominican’s Community-Engaged Research class, worked with Voces del Canal to design and implement the project during her sabbatical. Over the course of the 2021–2022 academic year, nine Canal community residents and seven undergraduate Dominican students met weekly to design the research, collect and analyze data, and develop their presentation to the San Rafael City Council. (Read more HERE.)

This project was a community participatory research project focused on improving public safety in the Canal, an issue first identified as one of three central concerns among Canal residents in a previous PAR collaboration with Dominican (Voces del Canal, 2012). Dr. Jennifer Lucko, who teaches Dominican’s Community-Engaged Research class, worked with Voces del Canal to design and implement the project during her sabbatical. Over the course of the 2021–2022 academic year, nine Canal community residents and seven undergraduate Dominican students met weekly to design the research, collect and analyze data, and develop their presentation to the San Rafael City Council. (Read more HERE.)

As a Wabash Center-funded Social Justice Grant Project (through Dominican Social Justice Department), Dominican,  Museum of the American Indian in Novato, and the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in San Rafael formed a partnership to provide educational events to DUC students that uplift the voices, knowledge, and wisdom of the Indigenous American leaders and advocates in Marin County and beyond. The year-long series included 7 lunchtime guest talks for the campus and church communities, and a virtual public panel featuring Marin County’s local indigenous leaders’ perspectives on how land acknowledgments should be understood within the context of historical settler colonialism and continuing systemic denial of Indigenous rights and access to land. See video recordings HERE.    

This program was developed in the summer of 2020 in response to the need of parents from the Canal who wanted to learn how to navigate their computers to support their children. The program opened new opportunities for parents in the Canal and allowed Dominican students to connect their lived experiences with their education. Through the program, bilingual, Spanish-speaking Dominican students got the opportunity to use their linguistics and cultural wealth. Along with our community partner, Parent Services Project Executive Director, Balandra Fregoso, and Andrew Raphael, Family Engagement Coordinator, Service-Learning program staff, Emily Wu and Julia van der Ryn, and the San Rafael City Schools designed a unique way to support parents in navigating Google Classroom and other web-based skills, leveraging the cultural knowledge and linguistic skills of Dominican students. In September 2020, Dominican’s Service-Learning program was able to bring on another part-time staff person, Jocelyn Gómez, to coordinate the student cohort and work with parents. The Marin Independent Journal wrote a story in its early development in Fall ’20 when 26 bilingual Spanish-speaking students began building and implementing the Digital Literacy Family Support Program (renamed Impacto Tecnológico). Read more HERE. 

This virtual program was a partnership between Dominican, Marin Promise Partnerships, Parent  Services Project, and the San Pedro Elementary school in the Canal community of San Rafael, where many students are low-income, recently immigrated English Language learners. Twice a week, the Dominican service-learning students meet with young San Pedro students in virtual Zoom breakout rooms, where they read, practice comprehension, and play games together. Family members such as parents and siblings also join in from time to time. Read more HERE.

This initiative was a campus wide community engagement initiative aimed at supporting a full count of all Marin County residents, especially “hard-to-count” communities and people. In partnership with the Marin Complete Count Committee, in Fall 2019, eleven faculty members embedded census projects in their classes to support census outreach, messaging, and access.

This was a participatory action research project in which Dominican and Canal Alliance supported Canal residents in designing a community assessment tool which was implemented by residents through a door-knocking campaign. More than 600 residents participated and the resident leaders analyzed the data and created the report and disseminated findings. This was the first resident driven initiative of this kind in the county and led to the formation of the grassroots community group, Voces del Canal.