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Reflection On Civic Engagement

Satisfactory Essays

Final Paper
Before this class, I saw civic engagement as something people did to be viewed as good. Also, I was always under the assumption that civic engagement was something people did to help others who were in a worst spot than themselves, either physically or financially. Throughout the years, the civic engagement I have been exposed to was mainly hands-on and short-term service such as working at food pantries every few weeks. I did enjoy that type of service, but I also felt like I was doing so it would reflect that I was a good person. Then in high school, I felt like we were all pushed to do service because it would look great on college applications. I lost interest because civic engagement felt pushed upon us. I believed that I …show more content…

They also exposed me to different ways to engage in a positive and helpful way. As well as how I can engage and be respectful to different cultures, group identities, and power dynamics, which is incredibly important to be a successful volunteer and person.
The second event I attended was IC Engaged where I worked with the food bank of the Southern Tier. The first activity we did was prepare backpacks full of food for kids with food instabilities within Tompkins County. They told us it would feed a large number of kids for several weeks which it was great to hear that are manpower helped this organization be able to do that. I also was excited about helping the community I am apart of and I hope to get more involved with Ithaca in the future. The next part of the experience we did a simulation, where we received a profile for a person that comes to the pantry. With this, we realized how rare and difficult it is to receive food stamps and food from pantries, as well as how often the only options is unhealthy food. This was a great activity to educate us on food insecurities. During these last few weeks of class, when we watched Place at the Table and read Sweet Charity we were focusing on hunger in America so it's been nice to see my service working correlating with this class. Through both the activity and class, I gained a better understanding of hunger in America as well as within the Tompkins County community and I realized how massive of a

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