Civic Identity

Eco-City Farms

At Eco-City Farms we learned how a passion for agriculture can be turned into an opportunity to help serve a community in need. In Washington D.C. Eco-City Farms uses their passion for agriculture to provide healthy and nutritious food to the D.C. area, an area that is considered a food desert. (The only food available is from fast-food/quick-service outlets, very few supermarkets) Additionally, this organization used their expertise to educate members of the community in which they served. Frequently they invite outsiders, from elementary students to college students to their facility to teach them how they can provide sustainable, healthy food to their own communities. Eco-City Farms exemplifies how you can turn your passion and skills into an entity that aides in community development.

Access Housing

During our second day of service, workers at the homeless veterans' shelter told us of their paths to being a part of providing individuals with a place to live and better their lives. The director, Dwayne, told of his dad cutting the hair of the previous director. He grew into his position and uses his young age and gentle nature to his advantage. A few workers had previously stayed at the house, left successfully, and decided to use what they had learned at the shelter to assist with future residents. This was a great example of "teaching others from your own experiences." Sometimes, people listen best from people who come from similar backgrounds as themselves.

Union Station

Due to a snowstorm that impacted much of the east coast of the United States, including Washington D.C., our planned service project for one of the days was cancelled. In spite of this, our group leader, Tevin Robbins, initiated our own service project which was preparing sack lunches for those experiencing homelessness at Union Station. Our team went grocery shopping, purchased our ingredients for the sack lunches, created a highly efficient assembly line to create the lunches, and travelled to Union Station to pass them out. This experience showed our service team how you do not necessarily have to be highly skilled in a certain area, like agriculture, to make an impact in a community. All you really need a passion for service (and in our case, the ability to make sandwiches) to help out those in need.

Coming Home to Iowa City

As we reintegrate ourselves and what we learned on our trip back into the Iowa City community, we must differentiate the needs of the communities in order to better apply our skills. While sack lunches made sense in DC, we wouldn't be able to do the exact same event in Iowa City. However, there are different opportunities, such as volunteering at the homeless shelter or cleaning up local waterways. Tying in our interest in business, we can assist in more behind-the-scenes, paperwork areas. We may use our skills in the years to come to either take the entrepreneurial initiative to start our own service business/nonprofit, assist in the growth of an organization that believes in positive change, or work for a community service business. Using the skills gained while obtaining our business degrees, as well as our own personal talents, we can make an impact in whichever community we find ourselves in that is entirely unique to who we are as individuals. We need to work together for change, but we all have something significant to offer as individuals.

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