Civic Identity

Carissa Colón, Hope Ritter, Mariana Chavez

"If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way"

-Martin Luther King Jr.

What is Civic Identity?

Civic identity encompasses an individual's and/or a group's identity status and values. It can be shaped through life experiences and can be challenged or impacted when faced with moral dilemmas.

Civic identity requires us to identify and relate to other that are notably different from us, which in turn, improves our capacity for empathy and our ability to think critically.

Social change and civic identity often go hand in hand.

There are 7 C's of social change and can be grouped into 3 broad categories of values: group, individual , and societal/ community values.

"Social change is any significant alteration over time in behavior patterns and cultural values and norms"

-Charlotte Brown, Week 8 ASB PowerPoint

civic identity & our cultural day

During our cultural day, we explored the Center for Civil & Human Rights where we learned about people who took/take a stand for what they believe is right (over and over again) even when their passion was met with hate or resistance. It urged us to reflect on our own identity values and what social topics we believe still face injustice.

Civic Identity & Community Partners

DAy 1: OPEN HAND

Here we helped prepare and package individually portioned nutritious meals. The meals are then sent out to those in need and are also experiencing medical or health issues such as cancer, HIV, diabetes. We collaborated with different volunteers from the area and the preparation of the meals required us to rely on communication and active listening in order to successfully package hundreds of meals. We about learned how the operation run and the commitment necessary to successfully complete their quota.

Hope

I don't think I registered how much team work was needed for this day. It was the first time we all served together in Atlanta and really the first time I saw all of us really click. We developed a sense of togetherness and pride through the experience.

Mariana:

Open Hand was the first community partner we worked with and it helped me explore the potential in our group by seeing how well we worked together to prepare and package 730 meals for the Atlanta community.

Carissa:

Open Hand was definitely a great first opportunity to serve in the Atlanta community. It exposed our group to serving together and to some of the reasons why places like Open Hand are extremely helpful. While there I was also able to have a wonderful conversation and connect with a young girl who had been serving there for quite some time. She is 14-years old and had just started high school. After conversing with her, I definitely had to reflect because at age 14 I was not even thinking of becoming involved within my community. Hearing about all of her goals, aspirations, and experiences inspired me and made serving at Open Hand one of my favorite places of the entirety of the trip.

Day 2: SWEEAC

Fun fact: There is ONLY ONE paid worker at this food pantry! The rest of the pantry runs thanks to all of the dedicated volunteers.

Mariana:

Listening to Ernesta, the Executive Director of SWEEAC, talk about how they have began to set up the food pantry outside to try and reach those that may be hesitant to accept their services, encouraged me to want to reach out to those in my own community that may be suffering from food insecurity but don't know if they fully qualify for it.

Hope

SWEEAC was probably the most challenging day for me because I had to learn how to go with the flow when quick changes were made. Sometimes we were told different instructions from multiple people for the same task. As a result, we had to re-do what we had just done if someone said it was incorrect. The SWEEAC experience taught me patience, the importance of open and clear communication, and adaptability. I am grateful for the experience because I think I learned to be a become a better communicator and try to find harmony within the day.

Carissa

Serving at SWEEAC was definitely one of the most fast-paced and tiring days because it felt as if a lot was happening at once multiple times throughout the day. I was able to speak and connect with some of the regular volunteers and the ones who I did meet were so sweet and willing to help or give advice at any moment. Also, speaking to Ernesta at the end of the day was eye-opening, especially learning that some of the volunteers themselves suffer from food insecurity, but they still make time throughout their day to serve their community.

Day 3: SAFE HOUSE

We helped serve lunch to individuals in the community, some of us were preparing plates while others were helping with drinks or building connections and getting to know these individuals For the later part of the day, we cleaned the building from floor to ceiling and then walked to the local downtown pavilion to converse with individuals out and around.

Hope

I was a "server" on this volunteer day. So, in addition to serving tables "waitress-style", I was able to sit down and engage with individuals coming to Safe House for the meal. Indirectly, I worked on my interpersonal communication skills. I approached the conversations with an open mind. Because, when individuals feel heard rather than judged, they begin to open up about their life and in turn we have established a connection. I felt like my conversations at Safe House did just this and I gained a greater appreciation for each individual's back story.

Mariana:

My task was to serve the beans and a piece of meat, and I must admit, seeing some of the portions I had to serve saddening me. It truly pushed my strength of positivity since I knew we had a large group of people to serve. It ended up turning alright since we had left overs and people ended up getting more. After serving lunch, we walked to a park where we had the opportunity to talk to individuals who were experiencing homelessness and their positivity truly captivated me. Although they weren't in an ideal circumstance, they were still able to make us smile by cracking jokes and having a great sense of humor.

Carissa

On this day, I was able to package meals and make plates with a few others, so there was not too much interaction with those coming in. For a while a few of us were stressed because we were being told two different things by two different people, so at times it was difficult to portion food out without feeling like we were giving too much or too little in fear of running out of food and not being able to serve everyone adequately. Luckily, everyone was able to be fed and some even had second plates! After lunch, we had conversations with people experiencing homelessness at a park nearby and these interactions were some of my favorite from the trip because although it was a simple conversation, it seemed to mean so much to Mr. Wilson to be able to talk to others and make some friends that day. I reflected the most this day and really was able to begin to understand the idea of truly being grateful and why it is important to be grateful at all times, even when we feel we are struggling the most.

Day 4: ATLANTA COMMUNITY FOOD BANK

Carissa:

Despite not having any first hand interactions and this experience being more behind the scenes, this environment was one of my favorite to serve in. It was so nice to be able to bring all of the other experiences full circle, because many of the other places we served at received food from the Atlanta Community Food Bank. I enjoyed this experience a lot because of the wonderful other workers and servers we were able to meet and connect with, and because of how organized the system was at the Food Bank. Everyone was able to do something different, and while some of us struggled a bit more than others we were still able to get through thousands of pounds of donations in just a few short hours.

Mariana:

The Atlanta Community Food Bank helped me realize the importance of inclusion and diversity. The volunteers we saw were a variety of people, from different age groups to people with disabilities to different skin tones. It was wonderful to see multiple communities come together for one cause.

Hope:

I loved how fast paced the operation ran and the discipline needed in order for the food bank to run so efficiently. We were able to sort of 12,000 pounds of donations in just under 3 hours; a testimony to importance of collaboration. The assembly line style food bank required us to learn our job, analyze methods for us to work together in order to maximize our efforts.

"Civic actions arise in the face of complex alternatives. Thus the work of helping students become more intellectually complex expands their capacity to think and act as citizens."

-Lee Knefelkamp

our OWN civic identity

Below are the Clifton top 5 strengths for each of us. We believe our Atlanta trip truly encouraged us to hone our strengths and pushed us to strengthen some traits that may not be inherently easy for us.

HOPE - Input, Learner, Developer, Empathy, Intellection

Below are just a few specific examples from my time on the trip and how hey impacted me.

While on the trip, we went to the park to talk to individuals experiencing homelessness and normally I have a hard time making small talk, but this task pushed me outside my comfort zone and made me be the one to initiate conversations with strangers. I was able to relate and connect with new people by sharing our common interest, knowledge, or life experiences. I learned new so many new viewpoints, values, and more from people I met while volunteering. When hearing peoples' life stories, I was able to reflect and then try to place myself in their shoes and see things from their viewpoint, which I believe further developed my sense of empathy. During our trip, I challenged myself to take note of all the strengths I saw in my teammates and to get to know them each on a deeper, more meaningful level. This challenge lead to numerous intellectual conversations (which I loved) and helped improve my ability to listen actively.

MARIANA - Positivity, Developer, Empathy, Harmony, Includer

I genuinely believe this trip enhanced all of my strengths. One thing I'm sure most of our team can agree on, was that we were all super tired. Although I wasn't well rested, being greeted with a smile and a "good morning!" from the Atlanta community at SWEEAC encouraged me to stay positive and give it my all. I was also very neat to see how every community partner worked differently, some required specific dress code while others did not. Listening to many of the leaders speak gave me a sense of their passion and motivation. It pushed my strength of developer because I was able to hear how small ideas turned into something great, which added to my belief that everyone has the potential to do something for their community. The Atlanta Community Food Bank gave a great example of inclusion, as they included a varies amount of people, including people with disabilities. I thought that was really inspiring and encouraged me to reach out to communities we may sometimes overlook. Although I wish I could say this trip was all good, we did have some lows, but it encouraged me to use my strength of harmony, as I knew some of the comments made were unintentional. It was amazing being able to debrief and reflect on the lows and highs at the end of the day with the rest of the team. Overall, my empathy for individuals experiencing food insecurity and/or homelessness has grown tremendously, as this trip allowed me to see the impact on communities first hand, which I've grown to have a better understanding of.

CARISSA - Input, Includer, Adaptability, Intellection, Ideation

This trip challenged me to think about my strengths in ways I had not done before and allowed for me to reflect on many of them. Honestly, whenever being in a new environment I can be picky, but most times I am able to "go with the flow" and conform to new places quickly. My adaptability to new environments really helped with being comfortable in new spaces quickly throughout the trip. I am also an individual who feels like I need clarification on most, if not all things, so being able to use my strength of input to ask questions to better understand the environment we were in and the people we were around helped to make different aspects of the experience much more understandable. With ideation, I love making connections, so serving and being able to see the Atlanta Community Food Bank was so satisfying for me because everything came full circle and I was so happy to know where the food we were processing was going to. My includer strength I feel came through everyday because I always felt like speaking to others around me and I am always looking to converse with new people. This led me to make some of my favorite and unexpected connections throughout the trip. Every night, we were able to gather together as a group and reflect on the day. Although sometimes long, I very much enjoyed the conversation we were able to have because hearing about everyone else's experience at the same volunteer space was interesting to me. My intellection strength was constantly working throughout these conversations because of how interesting and different all of our experiences were and could be based on the differences we all have.

ASB 2019

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