Reflections on Community Building through the lens of a college student

 When really reflecting on what drives my interest in community development, I believe that it stems from wanting more accessible leisure programs to be available, especially in communities that need them. Growing up, while it was underfunded in comparison to other programs, I was in color guard and teamed up with the band to produce incredible shows during the fall while creating shows in the spring to bring the music to life. It was a big part of my life growing up and I believe that having that creative outlet allowed me to express myself and be a part of a community that even expanded to my hometown. For instance, we would be asked to perform in parades and local football games that deepened our bond with the community. 

(Pictures of performances I was in while I did color guard growing up)

To get back to the original point, having the ability to be a part of a leisure program helped grow my character and allowed me to be a part of the community that allowed myself to grow. So, what I’m heavily interested in with regards to community development is implementing and encouraging programs like this so the youth can have a positive outlet to turn to. One of the many reasons why I love working at Disney is that they also do what they can to promote the arts within communities. From personal experience, they not only did parades that showcased high school bands but they would have music based workshops where high school bands are invited to be a part of. Even to this day, while walking to my work location, I will see buses of high school bands coming into the resort to and either performing or being a part of these workshops. But Disney has also promoted the arts in other ways such as donating $1 million dollars to an organization known as Inner-City Arts back in 2014 (Walt Disney Company, 2014).  

In fact, if there’s an organization beyond Disney that I feel shares the same goals as I do, it would be Inner City Arts. The organization is located in Skid Row and provides art programs for students to be a part of. They work with children from kindergarten all the way to high school to provide programs that allow these individuals to have a creative outlet amidst a part of Los Angeles that has a community based on crime and drugs. The individuals who sign up for the program can choose from a variety of different art classes available such as film, music, animation, ceramics, etc and be taught by professionals in those fields. Studies have shown that the students who have participated in these courses have increases in not only creativity but also mathematics and English scores (Inner City Arts, n.d.). For me, being in an art based program helped me tremendously so my interest within community development is making more programs like this accessible to students. 

As for what role I would possibly take up as a community development practitioner, I could see myself taking up the advisory/challenge role. I’m an individual who tends to have strong feelings about certain topics and I would be the one to challenge these viewpoints to fit better what the community might need at the moment. Judgment is one of the VIA character strengths that was found in my report, which means that in any given situation, I look at all potential sides and make a conclusion after I have all of the facts. I want to make sure that everything is considered when making a decision and this usually means having multiple plans in case one option doesn’t work. In fact, another one of my character strengths is being fair, which reaffirms that I want everyone to be treated fairly and have access to the same things across the board. 

(My Top 5 VIA Character Strengths)

Overall, when looking at my top 5 character strengths, they are based on applying fair judgment to situations with the hope of wanting a better future. I know that my opinions and thoughts alone can’t do much to change the world but even if I can give a different perspective to something and that leads to positive changes, I think that’s incredible and a step in the right direction. 

Being the first born American child to immigrants, while I lived the majority of my life in the States, my parents still managed to raise me with Italian culture. Back in Italy, especially when speaking of the small towns, community is virtually everything. These communities definitely are homogenous in that, everyone has the same values, same way of thinking, and if someone steps out of line or is an outsider, then it’s considered the whole community’s business. However, this also created a sense of belonging between everyone and people are known to contribute to make the community stronger and better. When I lived in Sicily for 2 months, there was this strong sense of connectedness the town had and everyone would look out for each other, something that is completely different in my personal life. 

While there were many aspects of that type of lifestyle that I didn’t agree with, I do believe that these cultural values really were in the backbone of the volunteer efforts that my family and I did while I was growing up. Really looking at it, the volunteering that we did was based on wanting to help our community grow and be more connected with each other. A big volunteering memory I have is when my father would volunteer at our church during St. Joseph day to help with the dinner meal that they provided that day. My father would make well over 300 cannolis for the event with absolutely no compensation and then would be in the kitchen from the morning to night to help with the pasta dinner. He did everything out of the kindness of his heart because of the cultural values we have on wanting to help each other when possible. This mentality of being involved and helping whenever possible is something that has been stuck with me growing up and has been the backbone of why I volunteered and did certain programs. We might be loud and a bit too prideful but at the end of the day, the culture in Italian small towns is being connected and helping each other and that’s what we strive to do within our own community. 

(I couldn't find actual photos of my dad's cannolis since it was so long ago but they essentially looked like this. We didn't make the shells but for the cream, my dad mixed ricotta cheese, powdered sugar, a small bit of vanilla extract, chocolate chips and grated lemon/orange skin. At the time, he would fill the cannolis up with this cream and then complete it with candied cherries, though he has since stopped adding those and adds candied orange peels to finish it off. When he made them, they were always a hit at St. Joseph's table and something that everyone wants when they come visit my home.)

While I may have many thoughts and ideas on how to build programs that could benefit the community, the reality is that there’s a lot of learning that I have to do in order to be able to properly achieve these ideas. I may want to champion having more recreational programs available for individuals but I am also aware that it’s not as simple as doing it. With that being said, I want to make it a goal to gain some more knowledge and skills about how to build capacity within the community. Specifically, by the end of the course, I want to understand what community capacity is and what my community needs in order to grow. In general, by the end of the class, I would also like to look further into programs that either Inner City Arts or Disney provides that help build art programs and look into opportunities to be involved. For instance, I want to look into volunteer opportunities that Inner City Arts has so I can learn more about the mission and learn how these programs affect communities through experience. 

Sources

Inner-City Arts. (n.d.). Why we’re here.
https://inner-cityarts.org/why-were-here/

Sharpe, E., Mair, H., & Yuen, F. (2016). Community development: Applications for
leisure, sport, and tourism. State College, PA: Venture Publishing.

Walt Disney Company. (2014, November 10). Disney Grants $1 Million to Inner-City
Arts’ Creativity Lab.
https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/disney-grants-1-million-to-inner-city-arts-creativity-lab/