Community Reflection Paper

Nervousness and excitement filled my being as I took those first, shaky steps on Purdue University’s West Lafayette campus. Having just lost my only parent to cancer the year prior, the determination to honor her memory by being the first to graduate college burned brightly within me as I made my way through the halls to my dorm room. What occurred afterwards is testaments my resolve to complete the endeavor I started in hopes of finding grandeur in the pastures beyond graduation. It is this same hope that drives my aspiration to become a Human Resource Generalist through the impactful knowledge and networks gained within University of Colorado Global Campus’ masters of Human Resources Management.

This past two week were most dedicated to the final project, but we also had a guest speaker from the biomedical engineering. We get feedback for our design decision matrix and for our second project report.

Team work and commitment through collectively working within and outside the center to aid those in need.

Thinking about what to do for my senior project was difficult. At first I was thinking of skateboarding and at first I thought maybe that could work then, I remembered a good friend of mine did a senior project and introduced me to Arlington Street. People's Assistance Network (A-SPAN). A-SPAN is a organization that’s mission is to provide life-sustaining services for Arlington’s most vulnerable individuals through outreaching and building relationships built on trust and respect.

High school has been a very interesting experience for me. It has definitely had its highs and lows and many confusing experiences in between. Overall, I feel like I have been equipped for not only college, but also life as a whole. High school has taught me many things, both academically and emotionally. It has revealed and exposed my true colors, both good and bad, and as a result, has built many aspects of my character. My experiences at school have shaped me into the person that I am today.

Somerville, M. H., Seeff, L., Hale, D., & O'Brien, D. J. (2015). Hospitals, collaboration, and community health improvement. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 43(1), 56-59. doi:10.1111/jlme.12217

I teach face-to-face classes, but I have students complete assignments and discussion board postings on Blackboard periodically.

We will use two different types of primary research to help aid in the creation of our video. First, we will research videos containing reenactments of community conferencing which can facilitate ideas to extrapolate from to make a video of our own. It is important to analyze the videos to see if there is a certain technique that can be used to accurately depict community conferencing. Also, we will look to see which videos are more popular and analyze what they do differently so that a video we make will gain high popularity as well. It is important to make a video which highlights aspects of the Key Bridge Foundation to make people want to donate towards this organization rather than other community conferencing organizations. Another primary research we will be doing is a survey to the students of the University of Maryland.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate my knowledge of volunteer organizations. Twenty years ago I began my volunteer career working for a relatively young faith-based non-profit organization. My initial community beautification responsibilities progressively developed into other areas of service including teaching, fiscal administration, and event logistics coordination. Through my evolutionary involvement as a multidimensional volunteer, I was able to learn about the inner dynamics of volunteer organizations: fiscal pressure, bureaucratic barriers, struggles to build and maintain community engagement, and the pros and cons of an exclusive volunteer labor force. For documentation I am including my letter of resignation (2014) as the financial

As a living-learning program promoting community engagement there are many concepts that are simultaneously applied to the VCU ASPiRE community and the communities at which we set to impact. While building the goals of community engagement within the Richmond community and local areas we are also promoting and building the same aspect within the programs community. We live, learn, and engage with in both communities. Which suggest how community engagement concepts relate to the principles that VCU ASPiRE’s community engagement. There are several concepts that I find to be essential to community engagement. ASPiRE itself is a community engagement focused on creating positive change in communities. In the context of VCU ASPiRE, I find Community

The census demographics that I found for my community were not entirely correct in comparison with my own observation of my community. One thing I notice that was accurate is that in my neighborhood I don’t see as much elderly people, many of the people I know range from 24-35 years old. I thought I was going to see a lower estimate number for people of White race and a higher estimate number of people that are Mexican race. My neighborhood is mostly occupied with people of Mexican ethnicity. This can also be because most of them might be undocumented immigrants. My neighborhood is a Hispanic/Latino community, which clearly shows in the census that the Hispanic/Latino race makes up 2,702 of the 3,852 total population. After people of Hispanic/Latino race, the second race to live in this neighborhood are people of Black/African American race.

On December 2nd, I talked about the benefits of volunteering for my persuasive speech. When I chose to do this speech on volunteering, I was very passionate throughout the whole time I researched and rehearsed this topic because I wanted people hear out my point of view on volunteering and why they should continue to volunteering. Overall, I believed that my presentation went well.

Yes, I have read it. I thought our survey responses were going to be totally anonymous. If I would have known that some of our comments were going to be put in a letter and then posted on the board, where everybody can read about my disability, I would not have included that information. The only reason I put that in there is for future students who are younger than me who have disabilities. my study classmates figured out it was me and asked me to confirm it. I would prefer to come and talk to you in person about the issue before the final and not continue to discuss this on an open discussion

Sense of community “refers to a perception of belongingness, interdependence, and mutual commitment that links individuals in a collective unity” (Kloos et al., 2012, pg. 27). Within my placement at the Queen Street Commons Café, I see multiple instances of sense of community each day I am there. The café strives to include every person from the community in order to ensure that they feel included and a member of the overall community. Two elements of sense of community that I see most often during my time volunteering are membership and integration and fulfillment of needs. Both are seen through the program at the café called, the Speak English Café. This program serves to integrate immigrants or refugees to Canada into the Kitchener community by helping them practice their English through a welcoming, informal

For the service learning project, I teamed up with three of my classmates to volunteer at a lady’s conference at Imani Restoration Centre church (IRCC) on the 16th of September, 2017. IRCC is a non-profit organization which is a Kenyan community founded that focuses on bringing African immigrants together to support and learn the things of God. Samuel Mwangi, the senior pastor of IRCC, said that through the counseling sessions that he holds at the church every Thursday, he discovered that most ladies go through the same challenges. Therefore, he thought it would be great for him to organize a lady’s conference, so that ladies could come together to share and support each other (Personal communication, September, 16, 2017)