Community Commitment
August 24th, 2019, Community Resources Center, 8:00am-1:30pm
Community Commitment was a campus-wide service initiative organized by Pay It Forward, a student organization dedicated to connecting students to service opportunities in and around the OSU campus.
Specifically, my group was assigned to the Community Resources Center just north of Columbus in Clintonville, which provides social engagement opportunities and transportation services in order to foster community within a group of individuals fifty years of age and older. My group and I were tasked with assisting a resident with yard work. A former OSU professor, our resident was overflowing with advice and hospitality. Laced between weeding her flower beds and dodging the typical garden pests, she spoke to us about her experiences teaching and how she truly enjoyed the classes that she taught and how the information she taught transferred to cultures around the world. For example, she talked to us about how the construct of a family in Ohio is unique from the family construct in Egypt, but that they both contain basic similarities such as empathy and compassion. Previously, I hadn’t truly explored the reality that there might be different family dynamics around the world, but once my resident brought it up, it answered a question I hadn’t even asked.
This event reminded me that there truly are communities throughout the U.S. and the world that are still based on personal relationships, something I forget often when I’m experiencing a rather unenjoyable display of humanity on social media or when I come across a horrid news story. It helped me to understand that although my main academic focus isn’t social work or service, those things are necessary in order to understand and appreciate the world around me, something that is a focus for me!