Author: ijenkins

Line dancing in a church basement in Worcester, MA on a Friday night.  If you had asked me two years ago where I would be in as a sophomore in college, I can guarantee you that location would not have been anywhere on my list.  However, that is precisely where I found myself a few weeks ago.  Among  questions of what am I doing here? and how in the world did I end up in here?, I smiled to myself in gratitude.  Many things and many people led me to be where I was that Friday night, and I was and am so grateful that I made it to that Macarena with the kids of Concordia Lutheran Church.

A few weeks ago, ten other Holy Cross students and I had the opportunity to spend a weekend of reflection in Worcester with Isabelle Jenkins and Marty Kelly.  The retreat, called “Reflections in the City,” gathered a handful of student leaders from different areas of campus, including SPUD leaders, CBL students and interns, Multicultural Peer Educators and more, who all share a common interest and passion for working for social justice.

During the 24-hour retreat, we had the opportunity to get to meet and hear the stories of some of the members of the Concordia Lutheran Church, to learn a little more in and about the Main South neighborhood, and to spend time in reflection individually and as a group about working for social justice.

The retreat was a respite from our usual responsibilities to “live some of the questions” we are always asking ourselves and one another.  We had the chance to reflect on what exactly is “social justice.” What does that look like and how do we work towards that?  What are our responsibilities individually and as a community to get there?  How does our identity as members of a Jesuit school community call us to this work in a particular way?  How do we deal with the frustrations of this work?  What are the issues of social justice in our hearts, in our everyday surroundings, in our cities, in our country, in our world? The retreat pushed me to ask questions that at times I forget to ask myself and it was frustrating because we did not find all the answers in those 24 hours.  If anything, we simply found more questions.  However, the beauty of that space was that we discovered questions together and together with meaningful dialogue wrestled with the discomfort those questions cause.  The retreat was but a glimpse of the beauty of accompanying each other in community —both the community of Worcester and our HC community within that— in these questions, which left unasked could rob us of the opportunity to be men and women willing to be broken open for and healed with those who are suffering around us.

Dos Años Después: A reflection on my time at Ascentria

I am currently writing this blog post at a time of great change in my life. It is the end of my second year here at Holy Cross and come August, I will be traveling to Leon, Spain, leaving my friends, family and everything I know at home to study in a foreign country for the full academic year. As a result, I want to take this opportunity to reflect on my time here spent at Holy Cross thus far, including my time volunteering at Ascentria Care Alliance.

During my first two years at Holy Cross, I have volunteered once a week at the Ascentria Care Alliance Client Center with their Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Program (URMP). URMP is responsible for refugee, asylee and trafficked young people under the age of 18 who are in the U.S. with no parent or guardian. Within URMP, I have volunteered in the tutoring program and this year my role as a CBL intern has been to run this program. Through the tutoring program at Ascentria I have been able to meet many Holy Cross students and work with inspirational youth from across the world.

Working with a refugee and immigrant population for two years now has given me an avenue for my personal development, shown me the importance of cultivating authentic relationships, allowed me to engage with the city of Worcester and maybe most importantly, it has engendered my passion for learning about social injustice issues. I grew up in a predominantly white, upper-middle class suburban town and never dealt with the prevalence of injustices in today’s society. I was relatively sheltered and had the privilege of not being forced to encounter the issues that I am now witnessing just outside the gates of Holy Cross. Volunteering with Ascentria has opened my eyes to issues such as inequity in education in the United States, the inefficiency of our immigration system, and the stigmatization of marginalized populations. Before coming to Holy Cross, I viewed these issues with a sense of ignorance, not truly understanding the gravity of the situations and the plight of those affected by such injustices. Now, my knowledge and empathy about these topics continue to grow.

CBL and tutoring in the Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Program have been greatly beneficial for my academic growth and personal development. These programs together have elicited my passion to learn more about refugees and immigrants in this country. Building relationships with the kids in URMP has completely eradicated any previous opinions I may have had about the immigration and refugee population, which have been shaped by the media and the environment in which I grew up. What we don’t hear about every day is the eighteen year old boy from El Salvador who graduated from high school in his home country and is now taking extensive ESL classes so that he can enroll in college; or the young girl from Guatemala with the infectious personality and an affinity for science. These first-hand experiences and conversations are what I am going to remember in the future. Those are things in the back of my mind when I am advocating for the equality of this marginalized population or trying to explain the complexity and challenges of the American immigration system. So I would like to say thank you, Ascentria and CBL. Thank you for forcing me to grow as an individual and teaching me so much. I have learned so much from the unaccompanied youth I work with and I just hope that in that same time, they have been able to learn something from me as well.

On Wednesday, April 13th, CBL Intern, Funmi Anifowoshe’ acknowledged and thanked our community partners for all that they do to serve as co-educators of Holy Cross students. Thank you, Community Partners! Read Funmi’s speech below.

Community engagement and Community-Based Learning has been, and continues to be, very important during my time at Holy Cross. I have been faced with some tough questions in the classroom – for example, how social and economic inequality plays a role in education, how individuals acquire and make use of a new language, and how food and hunger affect the daily lives of individuals and families. Questions that, theoretically I could answer, I could write a paper about, and that I could even personally conceptualize in my life.

However, through my community-based learning experiences, I was forced to do more than just that. I was tasked with taking all the theoretical applications we learn in the classroom, and applying it to or observing it in the Worcester Community. Through these courses and my community engagement, I have developed a greater sense of self. I have learned humility, empathy, and passion. But more importantly, I have learned to individualize people. It is very easy to allow abstract problems to transform themselves into stereotypes and prejudices. My experiences have allowed me to see beyond these stereotypes, and put names and faces to the wonderful people that live and work in Worcester.

These lessons are ones that I bring back to the Holy Cross campus and regularly share with my classmates and others. My passion for community based learning and community engagement never wanes. And it never ceases to amaze me how hard the community partners work to make Holy Cross students feel involved and valued at their sites. We do not face easy challenges nor ones that can be quickly fixed, otherwise the Community Sites and the Community Partners would have no need to exist. They make us work hard, they make us tackle our fears and implicit biases, and they make us see the true value of the greater Worcester community. Every individual that I have met through my engagement in Worcester, whether it was the community partners, the site coordinators, or the people of Worcester themselves, have had such a positive impact on my life.

The lessons learned are lessons that I cherish and will take with me. These lessons remind me that my goal in life should be a woman that stands in solidarity with others; whether in Worcester, Massachusetts, or on a global scale. I, and many others students as well, hope to be positive extensions of the community partners – who through their role at their sites, embody the Holy Cross motto of “men and women for and with others.”

The effect of community based learning may not always seem large nor significant, but without a doubt, community partners have fostered the growth and development of so many Holy Cross students; students that all cannot be here today, but wish to thank you for allowing them into your lives…for allowing them to discern the true meaning of service; for allowing them to discover a multifaceted understanding of social justice; for allowing them to advocate for and stand as part of the Worcester community.  

And so today, I do more than just say thank you on behalf of all the Holy Cross students that are engaged in the Worcester community. I want to acknowledge and affirm the meaningful impact you have had on so many of our lives. Personally, I am grateful to you all for allowing me to see Worcester beyond the view from the Athletic Center or my room; from beyond the view of the restaurants on Shrewsbury street, namely InHouse Coffee…but, for allowing me to also see Worcester through the eyes of a Brazilian immigrant trying to learn English so that she can help her son with his homework, from the eyes of a rambunctious and funny middle school student working to improve his grades, and from the eyes of a site volunteer that is passionate about giving back. Today, I stand here to thank you all for enabling me to see through their eyes. Thank you for all that you do.

The CBL intern selection for the next academic year brought me one step closer to college graduation. Seeing how passionate the prospective interns are, I was reminded of the same enthusiasm I wished to bring to the work I do, and I asked myself if I have fulfilled my commitment in serving other students and the Worcester community at large. As I look back and reflect upon how much I have grown as a person through my encounters and engagement with Community-Based Learning, I have nothing but gratitude towards those who encouraged me, touched me, and inspired me both intellectually and spiritually.

I took two CBL courses in my senior year. An interdisciplinary course in Community Engagement and Social Justice with Dr. Sterk-Barret and Liberation Theology with Professor Eggemeier, which gave me the perfect opportunity to participate in direct service and channel my learning into deeper understanding.

I spend on average three hours a week immersing myself at Dismas House, a halfway house that assists former inmates to rejoin the Worcester community. Apart from interacting with the residents occasionally, I have been given a variety of tasks in being able to understand the work of Dismas from within. Everything from filing paperwork to soliciting donations through phone calls, budgeting office supplies to grant writing, the skills I acquired and the stories I collected from CBL are not replicable in a classroom setting. The welcoming staffs at Dismas have given me enormous trust and opportunities for growth by teaching me new things in all aspects of the organization (budgeting, lobbying, farm operation, etc.). Their kindness pressures me to be at my best at all times, and I constantly ask myself, what can I bring to the community that is distinct from their own employees? What are the urgent issues facing the organizations that we, as college students can help address and resolve?

Of course the answer is not easy, but CBL is an avenue to explore the open-ended questions with humility, diligence and innovation.

First, we learn about the marginalized section of the society by humanizing the population we would not have had contact with otherwise. Recalling a presentation I did about homelessness, I focused heavily on unsheltered homelessness over sheltered homelessness. Our tendency to portray homelessness as sign-holding males on the street limits our capacity in imagining the rest of sheltered homeless population and their struggles. Through “hanging out with” the residents at Dismas, I came to realize that providing a shelter is not an end goal but only a beginning of the mission; a full integration requires a network of long-term support to provide people with a dignified environment for possible self-development. What is missing from the numbers and charts in textbooks is the human aspect of “social problems”, the understanding that it is not only the time and money that these residents have lost during their sentences, but also the social safety net, confidence, and in many occasions, love and trust from their surroundings. Our education rarely addresses poverty in such non-economic terms, yet it is one of the most urgent appeals I have come to witness through CBL.

Second, sometimes the seemingly trivial and repetitive tasks in service yield great importance to organizations, but the back-scene is often dismissed because they are not as obvious to be linked to a cause. I remember the days when I spent hours going over historical files to identify the needed documents to sort them into alphabetical order. I must admit, it was not the most pleasant job of all, but someone would have had to do it for administrative and assessment purposes. If I could be the one to alleviate the burden of the other staff, why not treat it as a rewarding process? At the beginning, I often resented writing proposals for a small grant, but later when I heard that the executive director and the resident fellow spend the majority of their time writing grant proposals, I felt it was naïve for me to cherry-pick the tasks I enjoyed doing without looking at the bigger picture. The reality of a non-profit organization is not as glorified as the front-stage service to the population being served, and we should not overlook the fundamental building blocks of a well-operated organization.

Third, I believe that there is something about us as young college students that allows us to contribute to our community partners in a unique way. One day when I was chatting with a long-time resident at Dismas House, he commented on the inconvenience of job-hunting since the shelter did not have a computer even though they had Wi-Fi, and the transportation to the public library is also quite limited. Most residents do not have a personal laptop to write their resume, not to mention the barriers they face when searching for employment. This reminded me of the recent upgrade of our computers in the library, and I visited ITS on campus after work that day. Within a couple e-mails, an old computer was being donated along with a keyboard and a mouse! Today, a corner of the living room is set up as the work-station for the residents to browse the Internet at any time.

There are many other instances that remind me of how privileged I am to enjoy the education I have today: No matter what we leave off at our sites during the CBL hours today, we are the ones who come home with knowledge and experience, step on the next phase in our journey, and carry on with our own lives. However, I believe the impact CBL’s experience leaves on us is not ephemeral. The justice-seeking lens we acquired and the promise we made to the communities shall transcend time and space to the next chapter in our lives, to the other communities we care about. And that is one promise I would like to keep from this point on in my life.

 

Come the end of May, I will not be spending the summer in anticipation of another September. Instead, I will begin a new chapter of my life that I have been preparing for throughout my academic career. And so, in this time of transition, I have a seemingly endless list of questions.

Some are small: Should I get a new bag for work? What sort of utensils should I bring to a new apartment?

Some dauntingly large: Where am I going to take my career? How will I get there?

Also, Where will I take my passion for social justice and community work?

Though my CBL course and my time as a CBL Intern, my passion for social justice has grown and developed. I will miss the times when I come into the Donelan office to share the stories from volunteering at places like the Refugee and Immigrant Assistance Center (RIAC). Anticipating the end of my time at Holy Cross, I relish the remaining opportunities to sit among a group of my friends and have important conversations on social justice. Will I lose this commitment if I can no longer work with my peers or the people at my site?

One day at RIAC, I represented a client at the Department of Transitional Assistance in downtown Worcester. The DTA is a game of perseverance and this was not my first go-around. I knew I would be spending the entirety of my time, 3 or so hours, at this office. So my clients, a young man, his wife, and their child, and I anchored ourselves in.

The silver lining to this situation was I had plenty of time to acquaint myself with this family. I love this part the most. Learning about the unique lives of other people has always been what I enjoyed about volunteering with the community. Talking with them, they shared the same joy that reminded me of my own family. In that crowded, stuffy office, I learned about their lives before they became refugees and what they hoped to achieve now that they were here. It was amazing to hear what they had to share.

The next day, I arrived to my CBL class and shared my story with the class. It was great to hear reactions from my classmates and eventually, the discussion led to something more in-depth. We explored the events that led this family here: the conflict that pushed them to the United States and the, ultimately, inefficient system we had in place to assist them. Now, these kind of conversations are something that I have internally and often.

For me, the path to learning about social justice originated in a desire to help other people. Through many experiences, it allowed me an understanding of myself and our society. It has caused me to consider places and people beyond my first impressions, past what I can get by a simple description. As I move forward, it may be entirely possible that service will fall by the wayside, drowned by all the big and little tasks ahead of me. But, the lessons of CBL will always stay with me, enriching my life, and, I hope, allow me to enrich the lives of others.

A year ago I anxiously waited to hear back from the Donelan Office regarding my CBL intern decision. I was wracking my brain trying to remember my answers to each interview question, rereading my application, and checking my email every 5 minutes. At that point, all I could think about was how I wanted to help promote Community Based Learning on campus by sharing my positive experiences in a CBL seminar with other Holy Cross students. I knew that I would enjoy the role and that I would have fun interacting with CBL students; what I didn’t anticipate was how much I would grow throughout the year with the support and encouragement of the Donelan office staff and my fellow interns.

As a senior, I have engaged in a lot of self-reflection as graduation quickly approaches. What I have realized is that my favorite classes do not fall neatly into an academic discipline but that they span across nearly every department on campus. The common thread: they were all related to social justice. One of my favorite classes was Professor Susan Crawford Sullivan’s class, Sociology 361: Leadership, Religion, and Social Justice. It was this class that introduced me to CBL by enabling me to take on a leadership project in the community. It was also this class that inspired me to become an intern and eventually encouraged me to apply for a post-grad year of service in order to learn more about issues related to social justice. Therefore, upon reflecting on the past 3 ½ years at Holy Cross, I can honestly say that applying to be a CBL intern was one of the best decisions that I have made during my time on the Hill.  I have grown as a leader by organizing and leading the Nonprofit Careers Conference as well as by working as the marketing intern for the office. Similarly, I have also learned how to be a better team player by being afforded opportunities to work with my fellow interns in order to continue to promote CBL on campus. However, the biggest reward that I have gained is without a doubt the incredible support network of the Donelan Office. Over the past year, Isabelle, Michelle, and the CBL interns have been both my biggest cheerleaders as well as my shoulder to cry on. Whether I am stressed and running on 2 hours of sleep because I have a paper due the next day or celebrating a job offer, the Donelan Office is always my first stop for support (after a call to my mother).

My biggest regret is that I did not apply to the position sooner. As a senior, I only had a year to get to know all of the incredible people in the Donelan Office and to make an impact in the Worcester community by engaging in CBL. Therefore, I encourage everyone to consider applying to become a CBL intern as a way to meet some of the most incredible and supportive people at Holy Cross. The Donelan Office not only shaped my time at Holy Cross but also my future plans. Therefore, if you need another thing to add to your Holy Cross bucket list before you graduate, applying to be a CBL intern should definitely be on your list.

At the end of my first year as a CBL student at Holy Cross, I wrote a reflection on my experience for my Montserrat class. I believe it is fitting to revisit some of the thoughts I had as we begin working with new sites and people this semester.

I began my reflection, “Each week at CBL, I have been pushed out of my comfort zone.” Although this adage is often overused when it comes to community engagement, there is value in placing this feeling at the foundation of your CBL experience. It is only when we embrace and recognize the discomfort injustice brings that we will be inclined to act upon it. So, relish in this feeling, and even look for it week to week at your CBL site.

Another piece of my reflection that is important to keep in mind is that your experience as a student at Holy Cross and as a CBL student are only small pieces of a larger, more dynamic puzzle. However, no matter how small the pieces, both are an integral part of your self-discovery and your understanding of the community. I learned not to be defeated by any challenges, because eventually they will be overcome and become part of your story. I came to this conclusion after my challenging adjustment as a first-year college student and the experiences I had at Ascentria Care Alliance, where I tutored unaccompanied refugee minors in Spanish.

The closing of my reflection included the following statement, “I will continue on at Holy Cross becoming a woman for others, taking CBL classes and facilitating my own learning experiences through service.” My hope is that this holds true for all of you as well as you embark on your CBL journey this semester, whether this is your first or eighth time working with a community partner.

NPCC Participant, Jacqueline Galvinhill ’18 guest blogs to share about her experience at the 2016 conference. 

My expectation for the Non-Profit Careers Conference was a week of workshops and lectures designed to present as much information to me as possible in the limited time available. I expected to leave the conference with a list of possible careers and resources to help me pursue my interests. What I actually experienced was so much more! The conference taught me important skills that I am sure I will use in my professional life, but more importantly, the conference created a space for me to question who I am and what motivates me. The sessions devoted to reflection and discernment forced me to examine how I was responding to new information by providing a structured avenue for asking myself questions that never would have otherwise occurred to me. In being asked to select adjectives for myself, I discovered how I view myself in a few words. In being asked about my childhood talents and my current talents, I realized that my love for public speaking was an interest that I could not ignore. In reflecting on failure, I was motivated to explore more opportunities even in the face of possible rejection. In reflecting on the whole week I felt somewhat liberated in knowing that there are a multitude of options available to me and that part of the fun is trying many of them. I went to the Non-Profit Careers Conference hoping to learn about job opportunities. I left the conference having discovered more about who I am and who I want to become for others.

Growing up in the inner city of Boston all that I ever heard was the college was the only way to “get out of the hood”, to get a job, and to be happy. I realized that I was not coming to college just for me but for my whole family. Everyone depended on my success. With that in mind I came to Holy Cross hoping to be an Economics major, because that is what I thought would secure me a job after college. At that point, getting a job and wealth was the only picture of living a good life that I had. I was not interested in the topic and that was clear to me my freshman year when I struggled in my Principles to Microeconomics class. Instead I found myself thriving in my Montserrat class, Exploring Differences, which is where I was introduced to CBL.

Personally I have realized that Economics does not fulfill me. With that class I did not have time to focus on justice, but I only had time to focus on myself. CBL helped me choose what was really important to me. With CBL I was able to direct my attention to God and justice for the marginalized. Justice is something that I want to focus on now, and that is what I see CBL doing for me and for those around me. CBL is more than just about community service to me, it is about the conversations of justice that CBL initiates in class. With discussions of CBL in my past classes, the injustices in the world become reality. As students we are able to put faces on the marginalized people we read about in class, which inspires us to get to the root of the problems in society.

Recently in my Liberation Theology course we discussed how some see religion as an opiate because it teaches us to endure the pain of the world and wait for the suffering to go away in heaven. Before I took any CBL courses, I was enduring the pain of the world by accepting the injustices that I saw. Instead of being idle to the injustices of the world, I have chosen to be active, and play a role in one day easing the injustices of the world.

 

As the semester comes to a close, and we all start panicking and stressing over midterms and final papers, the one place that I have been able to find solace has been in the CBL Office. Looking back, I was a little sad that I would be unable to take a CBL course this year, due to course requirements, but I think my role as an intern has certainly made up for that.

Some of my most memorable experiences this semester involved being one of the interns assigned to Professor Borghini’s Montserrat course, I am, Therefore I eat, assisting Ms. Isabelle in leading a reflection session in Sister Jeanne’s course, Social Ethics, and working with fellow intern, Lauren Suprenant during office hours.

Last semester, when I was applying to the CBL intern role, my drive for wanting this position was the desire to promote Community-Based Learning within the Holy Cross community. I have had such wonderful experiences with both of my CBL courses, and I wanted to share that with other students and allow them the opportunity to think of CBL as more than just an arduous burden in their busy Holy Cross schedules. Being able to work with a group of first-year students for Montserrat made me feel as if I was able to share those positive experiences. As part of the Montserrat course, each student in Prof. Borghini’s class visited Community Harvest Project, a CBL site that subsidizes the cost of growing fruits and vegetables and provides them to low income families and other members of the Worcester community. Community Harvest Project relies tremendously on volunteer work, and the students that I accompanied to the site really knew that their efforts were appreciated and played a large role in feeding Worcester families. During my last visit to the site with four students, Alex, Hanna, Christina and Julia, we were able to pick apples and tomatoes that were to be provided to families in the upcoming week. On the way back, we were able to discuss how difficult it was for families to feed their families quality food on a constrained budget, the system of food production in the U.S., and what food really means to people. Overall it was a productive experience, and getting to know the students, making sure they got the most out of their CBL experience, and standing as a woman for and with others in the Worcester and Holy Cross community was truly rewarding.

My other memorable experience was helping to lead an in-class reflection session for a religion course. I had never met a nun before, so meeting Sister Jeanne was very exciting for me. As part of the in-class reflection session, students had to tie in their CBL experience to an excerpt from Toxic Charity. I had a group of about 10-12 students, and it was really nice to hear about their positive, and sometimes negative, experiences from their CBL sites. Students spoke about their experiences and interactions with the Worcester community, and most of their reflections were positive. However, I think it is also important to acknowledge that some students had less than stellar experiences, which included feeling like their work was not beneficial or that their time and efforts at their sites were not organized or were wasted. This led to us being able to discuss how to better our CBL experiences, improve sites, and how to prevent people from needing the services of whichever site students were working in. In these reflections, each student was able to tie some aspect of their CBL experience to the real world, reminding me that the goal of CBL is to incorporate learning in and out of the classroom in a nonconventional manner. I had substantial and good quality conversations and reflections with my group, and it was nice to hear students talk freely about their CBL experience. Most said that they’d be willing to go out of their comfort zone and take another CBL course – so I have to say, the Donelan Office is clearly doing something right.

A couple days after helping lead Sister Jeanne’s in-class reflection, she sent me a little care package via the CBL Office. Not only did I feel tremendously appreciated, but many of the items she gave me were Halloween related, and receiving them from a Nun just made it all the better.

Finally, an amazing perk of being a CBL intern is getting to call Fenwick 321 your office for one hour, once a week. Every Monday from 11am to 12pm, I have my designated office hours with fellow intern, Lauren Suprenant. Office hours are almost always fun, insightful, and occasionally involve a multitude of tasks and interactions. Overall, office hours include helping Ms. Isabelle with tasks related to CBL, for example, organizing binders for the collection of sites, or printing and making copies for CBL students; during that one hour, we are also given treats and goodies that Ms. Isabelle so kindly prepares for us over the weekend; and my personal favorite, getting a visit from political science professor, Professor Fleury, and his nine-month old baby Charlie.

Thanks to the Office of Community Based Learning for making my semester so memorable and worthwhile.