UM Community Action Projects

As part of my Community Action and Social Change minor, my academics and passion for community outreach have finally merged together. During my sophomore year, I was enrolled in a course through the sociology department in which I had the opportunity to study educational reform as well as volunteer a few hours each week at a local school in Ann Arbor, Thurston Elementary. To conclude the semester, my cohort created a Community Action Project that we impleneted into the school's curriculum. For the project, our team designed book marks to be decorated by the Thurston students. Each student had the chance to color two bookmarks, one to take home for themselves in honor of March Reading Month, and another to be donated to a sick child at the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital. The end goal was to touch on concepts that we discussed in class, such as privilege in terms of education, with these first and second grade students, but also to give back to the community in our own, creative way.

Flash forward to my junior year, I am currently enrolled in a course through the School of Social Work, in which I was given the opportunity to engage in yet another Community Action Project. From the start of the semester, my group quickly learned that we each had an individual passion for children, specifically young students. After discussing our personal experiences and backgrounds working with various programs and clubs, we decided that the most efficient and effective program to complete our Community Action Project was an organization called Telling It, an after school program for homeless youth in the greater Ann Arbor area. For the past few weeks, the three of us drove to Ypsilanti on Tuesday afternoons to engage in some of Telling It’s sessions, having the special opportunity to work with the head coordinator, Deb, her team of social workers/social work students, and most importantly, the kids. In these sessions, the kids, ages eleven through thirteen, would partake in various activities, from writing exercises, which Deb calls throw downs, and painting projects, to improvisation demonstrations and interactive games. During our last visit to Telling It, we were given the chance to lead our own session, in which we invited a slam poet and a stepping group, all fellow Michigan undergraduate students, to show off their artistic talents as we aimed to uncover aspects of our many identities. From limbo and trust falls, to a poetry exercise called "I am, I am not, I will be," to a step off between adults and the kids, our session turned out to be a great success.