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Jade Bullock, Jon Sanford, Alison Hershley
The Food Bank of the Rockies - At the Food Bank of the Rockies, we assembled pallets of food that other food banks or organizations have ordered from the warehouse.
Denver Rescue Misson - At Denver Rescue Mission, we primarily sorted out pallets of food to create an easier way for people to locate the food they need.
Habitat for Humanity ReStore - At the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, we unloaded trucks full of donated furniture and placed it throughout the store. We also organized items that were already on the floor, so customers can locate them.
Habitat for Humanity Home Repair - At the Habitat for Humanity Home Repair, we started the repair process of a home by tearing off siding, gutters, and wood planks from the sides of the home.
Jade Bullock
Service for me has been a huge portion of my life. I love to give back to communities and complete service projects, but there are many contributions to service that I never considered until taking this course. Each week we learned about different aspects that contribute to service learning. It is one thing to do community service but to learn about is another. What Hawkeye Service Teams does is teach you about service and then you implement it during your trip. There were two specific themes that I felt helped strengthen my ability to serve.
Alexa and I helping out at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore!
In the first week of classes we tackled an influential theme and that is active citizenship. Active citizens go beyond the volunteer work; they educate themselves with the different social issues in the community like we did by reading and discussing our common reading book and focus of immigration. Immigration is a huge issue in our country and I feel there are ways to protect those who have traveled here to America. What people fail to realize is most immigrants migrate here to better their lives whether that be from escaping war, poverty, or gang violence. As active citizens we can protect our community and the immigrants by educating ourselves with the issues and working with organization that work along with immigrants. We all could consider ourselves active citizens but ask yourself, do you ACT as an active citizen? From this course I have learned the importance of action in a community. We as active citizens must act and do accordingly to benefit our community. I was able to act as an active citizen during the service trip in Denver, CO.
The way you look and approach a community plays a big part in service. All my time completing service projects I always look at how I can fix a problem or what do they need to do to be more efficient. What I have learned from this course is that quick fixes are not beneficial for a community. The asset based community development (ABCD) is the way to go. This is a concept I was not familiar with until this course. I never realized that I was participating in the traditional development which focuses on the negative issues and doesn't try to work with the community. The ABCD plan builds confidence in the community and strengthens their drive to better themselves.
In Colorado while performing services, I kept this in mind by asking the organization what they need from me instead of dictating what I will do. When coming to a new place to do service work, the ABCD method showed me to come with a optimistic attitude. Not everything may seem amazing there but the key is to believe that it can and will get better if we all work together. This is something I would incorporate for everything I do and not just volunteer projects. There were many other notes to take away from this course but these two by far had an impact on the way I work with communities; by doing it together.
Alison Hershley
During my early childhood, I was always on the other side of service. I was the one being served to, so when I moved in with a family that is a little more fortunate, I wanted to serve people because people served me. Two main themes that I have significantly impacted and strengthen my ability to serve.
Asset based community development (ABCD) the main theme that has strengthened my ability to serve. As a child, I encountered many people walking into my community or home and telling us what we need. All of our additional resources came from social service agencies through the government. Never did someone actually ask us what we think we need. Through ABCD, things like dreams and strengths are the focus of service, not needs or problems. Citizens get to partake in ABCD which creates empowerment of the community which is otherwise taken away. If service is focused on community assets such as human or cultural capital, then service can be focused on how those assets can help serve the community in different ways. In Denver, I used the ABCD method instead of traditional by listening to what the community leaders say they need and apply my service skills to that project. At the Denver Rescue Mission, one of the tasks they asked us to do was take out all of the yams, cranberry sauce, and other Thanksgiving foods from different boxes because if they were to donate those, people wouldn't eat them out of season. If we weren't told to do that, I would have donated that food because in my perspective, food is food, but ultimately, they were right. I learned that they know the community better than anyone, and we would have approached the whole issue wrong if we didn't ask the community themselves what they need. In the future, I plan to use this knowledge in our own Iowa City community. I plan to use the ABCD approach every time I serve the community to create a bigger impact on the community.
The second theme from our lecture that had a significant impact on me is the deprivation trap. When I was experiencing this trap is a child, I didn't really understand that they were all affecting each other. Once someone has one of the five parts of the trap, they are very likely to get all five parts. If one part of the trap gets addressed, but not the others, then the part that is being addressed will most likely return to its previous state. In order to relieve someone from the deprivation trap, all five parts need to be addressed. While working with Michaela and Kiersten from Habitat From Humanity in Denver, I felt like they were unknowingly working to address all of these issues with the community member, instead of just fixing his house. They were fixing his house to help combat the poverty aspect, but they were also letting him chose what color he wanted his house, and included him on all aspects of the project. This can provide him with a sense of power, and inclusion. Michaela and Kiersten's leadership throughout this project made me realize and learn just how necessary addressing all aspects of this deprivation trap is. In the future, I plan on serving with teams and projects that address the deprivation trap as a whole, and not just one aspect of it.
I believe that these themes have helped shape the person I am today by allowing me to be aware of the other things that are going on around me, as well as learning the steps to becoming an active citizen in my community. This is important to me because I always strive to be the best person I can be, and serve my community to the best of my abilities. With this knowledge, I am strengthening my abilities, which allows me to serve the community in many ways.
Jon Sanford
The alternative service trip program here at the University of Iowa helped greatly in reinforcing my values and ideals regarding who I am, my mission in life, and how service helps to bind those things in a goal oriented manner.
What I gained most was the reminder of my humility. Living on campus, what we see on a daily basis are students who are financially secure, seeing this as our world, when in reality there are so many people out there struggling in vast poverty that we never see. The most vulnerable are hidden from the majority of society, and that needs to change. We need to see the damage this system has caused, and find ways to resolve it to develop healthier communities where people can reach their full potentials. I most definitely would recommend an alternative break to students; not only do they develop a sense of what it means to be an active citizen from classwork, but the experiences they encounter while serving others and exploring new areas is something truly life changing to many.
It's so incredibly important to learn and be aware of these things. Not just for our service project, but the many others also. I want to see a world ready to lend a helping hand, and this program is a fantastic opportunity to do so. Take the housing project our group worked on with the habitat of humanity. Sure, it can seem like we were just tearing off some siding off a house, but think about the bigger picture. People are greatly impacted by these acts, now this family is one step closer in having a house they are proud to call their home, improving their lives in all kinds of ways. What we did in a cliché way was helping to save the world, even with how small and insignificant it seemed.
How will I use this information I learned from class and my experience in Denver? Simple. Use it in my career prospects. My career aspirations are to work with the United Nations, US State Department, or other international organizations, with the ultimate goal of helping people most in need of a voice. This is exactly what has been reaffirmed from this trip. All the leadership experiences and skills I have learned are directly going towards the skills needed for me to succeed later in life. This has made me a self-proclaimed "global active citizen", which naturally motivates me to immerse myself in other cultures and ways of thinking to fix problems.
Talk about the ultimate peel challenge! Tearing off siding at our house renovation project
The idea of the active citizen is the best thing I learned from this course. To me, an active citizen is someone that incorporates their community as a priority into their life choices and values. As an active citizen walks down their local street, they see what needs to be changed to improve the life of one’s fellow community. They realize the skills they have, how they can use them to improve the community, and what they can learn to continue improving everyone’s way of life. Whether it’s starting a community garden, creating a fundraiser for winter coats, or packing lunches for children in need; an active citizen realizes the impact they can have and has the motivation to act. The national and global level of action is just as impactful, and an active citizen realizes this. They have the capability to coordinate with other active citizens to create change on a large-scale level also!
On my alternative spring break trip in Denver, Colorado, some components I expected, while others came as a surprise to me. For example, one of the things that surprised me were the people we came in contact with. Many had an upbeat, active manner to them, but also appeared relaxing to me. These are the people that appreciate what life has given them and are completely content in staying in Denver. Another surprise I experienced was the intersectionality of our service projects. Our topic for our destination city was immigration, but the projects themselves touched in many other issues, such as homelessness, food insecurity, and income inequality. These topics not only affect many migrants arriving in the United States, but many other people as well. Because of the broad depth of our service projects, we got to help many people outside of the immigrant label also.
Again, the issue with learning about my topic ‘immigration’ in this trip is that the projects indirectly impacted the community, making it difficult to learn much on immigration outside of the book we read for our class discussion. Although, the people we helped face many of the same issues as immigrant families, so in that way I guess we learned a great deal. The change I want to see is for Denver to return to the topic of homelessness, and to find a border town to focus immigration on instead.
What brought me to service, and this trip specifically is who I am as a person.
The neighborhood I lived in, although mostly white, was composed of low-income families. The opportunities and resources of the area were limited, the schools, roads, and hospitals were of poor quality, and a child couldn’t stay out late due to the fear of violence from street crime. Our society provides some help for single mother families, but the historical foundation expects a nuclear married husband and wife to provide for the family, so many jobs and other opportunities benefit this typical family the most, leaving families like mine behind.
My mindset is incredibly focused on humanity and the functioning of societies around the world. I’ve seen the most wicked parts of people in my life, and this can make me a bit pessimistic. An act like service for others reminds me that there is good out there also, and this kind of selfless action, one of selfless concern, fills my soul with positivism and admiration for service. I’ve never volunteered without the having a smile on my face at the end of the day, knowing how much I may have helped someone by volunteering my time for them.
You guys have changed me for the better :)
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