Transformation Through Volunteerism
Feb. 7th, 2007 07:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rdwaynewrightI'm a proud City Year corps member, so I figured I'd give CYGP a little love. I typed the following essay yesterday in response to an senior corps application question and I thought I'd share what I wrote. This is why City Year is awesome and why you should get involved!
City Year’s mission is to foster a sense of community amongst all people regardless of their differences by promoting service, civic responsibility, justice, equality, and the global community. Obviously, this environment does not exist on a national scale. As such, it is the responsibility of all citizens, not just City Year members, to equalize the inequalities created by the absence of the elements described above.
Our one-day service projects combat the results of the previously mentioned problems on several levels. By holding these events, City Year demonstrates how a group effort can help alleviate problems in our society through the improvement of education, engaging community members, and facilitating the formation of a national/global community, one locale at a time, by providing an opportunity for diverse populations to interact without being inhibited by their differences. This proves that cooperation is possible between many different people who share a common goal of solving the same problem. Not only has a particular problem been somewhat alleviated by cooperative service, but more people also become members of the Beloved Community, as their social awareness is transformed by the act of serving.
Before becoming an active part of the national service movement and effecting change, one first needs to achieve a certain level of awareness in regards to the problems facing low-income Americans. I believe this qualifies as “hitting a justice nerve.” Many volunteers arrive at a City Year service event with the idea that they have volunteered because they want to be helpful; they are part of a group that signs up; and/or because they feel as if it is expected of them. City Year is in a unique position to transform the single-sentence reasoning of these volunteers into an informed dialogue driven by a desire for social justice and change.
My school district in Maryland leveraged funds to remodel existing schools and build new schools so that class sizes stayed small, and the building standards remained top notch. The Worcester County school district also had little trouble hiring and keeping new, highly qualified teachers and buying current educational supplies so that both teachers and students had a comfortable, productive, and safe educational environment. When compared to my educational experience, the schools in Philadelphia are clearly unequal.
Imagine that Suzie Volunteer is your average external volunteer from Chestnut Hill West, and she is attending a large-scale service day at any Philadelphia public school. Disregarding any background aside from her educational background, she has most likely attended similar schools to those from my childhood. Upon entering the school grounds, she is immediately able to see that the school building is not in the best external physical condition. Inside, there are stains from water leaks, bars covering the windows, dim lighting, old floors, antiquated technology, and the walls are a dingy yellow-white. Suzie Volunteer is seeing firsthand the learning environment that the students are forced to endure each day.
Suzie begins to remember the news reports that she has heard describing out- of- control public schools in Philadelphia and schools lacking libraries, teachers, and textbooks. As Suzie Volunteer is realizing all of this, she is placed on a team with a mother and her son who, she quickly discovers, attends the school at which she is serving that day. The mother and her son tell Suzie about the school and how much it means to them that she is here to fix it up. When Suzie asks the student what he likes to do, he tells Suzie that he likes to read, but the school does not have a library. He likes to paint, but there is no art. They had a music class, but the teacher fled to the suburbs. He is a little bad at math and could use more help, but the classes are crowded; and the teacher does not have time to tutor him personally.
Suzie realizes that there are one thousand other students in this school just like the boy painting next to her and there are one thousand students in the middle school down the street. Another thousand attend the high school and there are thousands more throughout the city. Suzie does not live in the city, these are not her children, but she sees that the society that was supposed to take care of everyone equally has failed. In City the words of her City Year hosts and in the words of the student and his mother next to her, Suzie has been told that she is the key to accomplishing all that the larger society has not. She sees, at the end of the day, that she has made a difference. Suzie Volunteer is now aware that she is not at the school because she feels obligated or wants to do something generally good. Suzie is serving because it is unjust that the child next to her, a child with so much potential, is unable to have the same opportunities that she had, through no fault of his own.
While Suzie is too old to join City Year, she knows that she can still answer City Year’s call for justice and equality by volunteering her time each weekend to serve food in a soup kitchen to those who are hungry or ringing a bell at Christmas for the Salvation Army. Therefore, by volunteering at a one-day City Year event, not only has a volunteer become aware of the need for social change, but she has also become part of the national service movement to the benefit of her country.
City Year’s mission is to foster a sense of community amongst all people regardless of their differences by promoting service, civic responsibility, justice, equality, and the global community. Obviously, this environment does not exist on a national scale. As such, it is the responsibility of all citizens, not just City Year members, to equalize the inequalities created by the absence of the elements described above.
Our one-day service projects combat the results of the previously mentioned problems on several levels. By holding these events, City Year demonstrates how a group effort can help alleviate problems in our society through the improvement of education, engaging community members, and facilitating the formation of a national/global community, one locale at a time, by providing an opportunity for diverse populations to interact without being inhibited by their differences. This proves that cooperation is possible between many different people who share a common goal of solving the same problem. Not only has a particular problem been somewhat alleviated by cooperative service, but more people also become members of the Beloved Community, as their social awareness is transformed by the act of serving.
Before becoming an active part of the national service movement and effecting change, one first needs to achieve a certain level of awareness in regards to the problems facing low-income Americans. I believe this qualifies as “hitting a justice nerve.” Many volunteers arrive at a City Year service event with the idea that they have volunteered because they want to be helpful; they are part of a group that signs up; and/or because they feel as if it is expected of them. City Year is in a unique position to transform the single-sentence reasoning of these volunteers into an informed dialogue driven by a desire for social justice and change.
My school district in Maryland leveraged funds to remodel existing schools and build new schools so that class sizes stayed small, and the building standards remained top notch. The Worcester County school district also had little trouble hiring and keeping new, highly qualified teachers and buying current educational supplies so that both teachers and students had a comfortable, productive, and safe educational environment. When compared to my educational experience, the schools in Philadelphia are clearly unequal.
Imagine that Suzie Volunteer is your average external volunteer from Chestnut Hill West, and she is attending a large-scale service day at any Philadelphia public school. Disregarding any background aside from her educational background, she has most likely attended similar schools to those from my childhood. Upon entering the school grounds, she is immediately able to see that the school building is not in the best external physical condition. Inside, there are stains from water leaks, bars covering the windows, dim lighting, old floors, antiquated technology, and the walls are a dingy yellow-white. Suzie Volunteer is seeing firsthand the learning environment that the students are forced to endure each day.
Suzie begins to remember the news reports that she has heard describing out- of- control public schools in Philadelphia and schools lacking libraries, teachers, and textbooks. As Suzie Volunteer is realizing all of this, she is placed on a team with a mother and her son who, she quickly discovers, attends the school at which she is serving that day. The mother and her son tell Suzie about the school and how much it means to them that she is here to fix it up. When Suzie asks the student what he likes to do, he tells Suzie that he likes to read, but the school does not have a library. He likes to paint, but there is no art. They had a music class, but the teacher fled to the suburbs. He is a little bad at math and could use more help, but the classes are crowded; and the teacher does not have time to tutor him personally.
Suzie realizes that there are one thousand other students in this school just like the boy painting next to her and there are one thousand students in the middle school down the street. Another thousand attend the high school and there are thousands more throughout the city. Suzie does not live in the city, these are not her children, but she sees that the society that was supposed to take care of everyone equally has failed. In City the words of her City Year hosts and in the words of the student and his mother next to her, Suzie has been told that she is the key to accomplishing all that the larger society has not. She sees, at the end of the day, that she has made a difference. Suzie Volunteer is now aware that she is not at the school because she feels obligated or wants to do something generally good. Suzie is serving because it is unjust that the child next to her, a child with so much potential, is unable to have the same opportunities that she had, through no fault of his own.
While Suzie is too old to join City Year, she knows that she can still answer City Year’s call for justice and equality by volunteering her time each weekend to serve food in a soup kitchen to those who are hungry or ringing a bell at Christmas for the Salvation Army. Therefore, by volunteering at a one-day City Year event, not only has a volunteer become aware of the need for social change, but she has also become part of the national service movement to the benefit of her country.
