Community Service

Volunteering with the UP Program

I have been a volunteer support with the University Participant program since Fall 2024, and I volunteer for about an hour a week. I have volunteered around 30 hours with UP so far!

The UP program is WCU's 2-year residential program for students with intellectual or developmental disabilities. Students take classes, live on campus, work 10 hours a week, and participate in college life along with every other Catamounts while still being able to receive their level of needed support. UP students grow immensely through this program, improving their ability to live independently, maintain a schedule, communicate effectively, regulate their emotions, form friendships, and ultimately have an extremely positive college experience!

As a support, I get to share a meal with students, do a GroupX class, have a gym session, do homework, do laundry... and really anything else the students would like! It has been very fun to get to know several of the UP students better this year. I think I grew my communication and listening skills through this experience, which will benefit me as I continue to guide and facilitate group activities and assessments as a recreational therapist in the future. My experience reinforced my belief that individuals with learning disabilities deserve to have opportunities to grow and continue developing independence, daily living skills, and workplace experience. I will continue to volunteer as a UP support until I graduate!  

Advocacy Project

In my English 352 class with my Honors Scholar cohort, I served as the General Manager for our Advocacy Project, which we put in the Jackson County Library. The project's goal was to raise awareness to the problem of poverty in Jackson County and provide resources for community members to help surrounding organizations.

During this project, I initiated the first meeting between editor-in-chief Megan and head graphic designer Caroline to plan out a timeline, especially factoring in time necessary for communication with the community partners and final edits. This timeline proved successful, and I checked in with Megan and Caroline. Once the panels were pieced together, I helped edit outside and inside class, helping make decisions and finalize the panels. As a member of the Homebase team, I went with the group and had more of a main speaker role during our time there, explaining the project, our belief in its importance, and our aims.

Throughout this project, I really enjoyed being able to take a more active role in the community and am glad to have been able to form a connection with Homebase personally, and to the other three organizations through extension. Western Carolina University can form a bit of a bubble, and before the hurricane I did not understand the level of poverty that exists in the surrounding communities. Now, even more, I feel as though my eyes have been opened to it a lot more, and I have the desire to make a difference and help where I can. Through this project and our reading, I believe in the power of a community and personal responsibility to support those around us. Life is a team effort, and we should all build up others, pulling them up with us as we also grow. Currently, this might mean volunteering with Homebase or any of the three other organizations, but I hope that I can assist in a progressively more impactful way in the future, in whichever community I end up in. 

Hurricane Helene Clean-Up

During the second week of our extended break, I volunteered in Clyde and Canton, NC. The flooding in these towns reached upwards to eleven feet, completely filling basements and rising four to six feet up the walls of the main homes. The complete devastation was heartbreaking, as much of the furniture, belongings, and memorabilia in the homes were completely unsalvageable. These communities will have several years of rebuilding to get back to a new “normal.” FEMA funds will hopefully start trickling in but will likely be slow coming due to the sheer amount of need in western Carolina and the several other parts of the country affected by Helene and now Milton. Yet even amid a situation that can seem hopeless, there is hope.  

On our way to muck out a house down the street, my mom and I passed a spray-painted plywood sign placed on the top of the garbage pile that used to be the whole bottom level of the home. It said: “This is stuff. Love and unity last forever.” This disaster brought the community together, neighbor helping neighbor. I truly think Western Carolina University and Cullowhee did not experience significant damage so that students can get out and help the surrounding community in the next several months to come. It was inspiring to see and be a part of groups of laborers sent out by churches, cars driving around with hot meals and water ready to give out to those in need, distribution centers overflowing with canned goods, water, cleaning supplies, and every other necessity because of the generosity of both the local and national community. In no way do I mean to lessen the impact of deaths caused by this disaster; they are heartbreaking, devastating, and must be mourned. However, hope must exist in a balance.

Life must be celebrated, and this disaster has been a reminder of its fragility. The message of that sign will continue to stick with me moving forward. This is stuff. Love and unity last forever, and times of crisis tend to bring out the best in people and communities, not just in Carolina, but all over the nation. I am thankful that I was in a position able to contribute to rebuilding our community.

CURE: Conference on Undergraduate Regional Engagement