Becky Grinstead, Bonner Foundation Staff Extraordinaire started us off with her personal thoughts and reflections on the 2009 Presidential Inauguration. Not only do we want to know what you are passionate about, but next week, the Bonner Congress weekly will feature your reaction to the Inauguration. Feel free to comment on the following:
-Did you get the chance to attend the Inauguration? What was it like? How did you feel?
-What was your reaction to the Inauguration? What elements struck a cord with you?
-Was there anything in the inaugural address that was memorable?
-Was there anything about the inauguration that inspired you to further stay connected to politics and/or service?
-What can you do in the next four years to hold the President accountable.
We look forward to hearing from you!!
All the best,
Gretchen
P.S. Please feel free to email them to me directly as well at gmielke@bonner.org
On our way to meet the Obama Train! Washington D.C. January 17th, 2009
I LOVED Tuesday!! I loved, loved, loved TuesdaY!! And I will tell you why:
I witnessed History. I witnessed America at it’s best! I must say, I have never been prouder to be an American as I was this Tuesday when Mr. Obama raised his hand and became the 44th president of the United States. No matter what your political views, this was a proud day for America.
At 6:30am on Tuesday I was curling my hair, getting ready for work when Beyonce’s “All the Single Ladies” began reverberating from my bedroom. I ran to my phone to see who in heck was calling me at 6:30 in the morning and saw that it was my dad. ”Hey Dad,” and without even pausing, huffed, “is everything ok??” (because seriously, who’s father calls at 6:30 in the morning?) ”Hey babe,” my dad said, “gettin ready for work?”
“Yea, what’s up? Why are you calling me?” ”Oh, I just wanted to be the first person to talk to you on this historic day.”
I couldn’t believe it! This was my father talking. My father, the staunchest Republican in the United States (practically Libertarian) called me up at 6:30am on the morning of January 20th to say, “This is America at it’s best. We are witnessing history.” And it was true. Martin Luther King Jr’s words, “history bends towards justice” became manifest Tuesday, as I watched men, women, and children of every color and every walk of life brave the cold January weather to celebrate and honor Barack Hussein Obama’s acceptance of the office of President of the United States.
But do you know what my favorite part of the whole day was? It wasn’t the news coverage of the event, or the tears streaming down the faces of my friend’s eyes as we watched an African American assume the highest office in America; it was these words:
“For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.”
So here we are Bonners. We have a new administration, a new era. But what does this mean for our country? It means absolutely nothing unless we change, we grow, we work for justice, for peace; unless we struggle, serve, and love. What does it mean to be a citizen of the United States? What does it mean to be a good citizen of the United States? That is my question to you.
What are you living for? Why do you serve? Because if we love this country, we need to know how to fix it’s problems. As Alex de Toucqueville said over 150 years ago, “The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”
Please comment back to this post and tell the world what you are passionate about, what you care about, and how you are working towards creating a better America.
The launch of the Bonner Video Project finally is here!
The Bonner Video Project is designed to get campuses involved in creating quality videos! Each campus is challenged to create videos in four different topics: Bonner Program Profile, Community Partner Profile, Training and Enrichment, and Issue Awareness. Then at SLI this summer, we will be hosting the first ever SLI Film Festival. Throughout this spring, you can expect to receive updates and tips from the Bonner Video Leads here at the Foundation: Rebecca Grinstead and Annie Pasqua. We excited about this new initiative and can’t wait to see all the video. One thing to note, at the Fall Director’s Meeting we told the network that we each campus would be receiving a flip cam by Christmas. We are still currently waiting for a purchase order to be approved and we hope to have the cameras to you in February. In the meanwhile, you can brainstorm your videos through storyboarding and use a digital camera with video capably or borrow one from someone on your campus until it arrives. Let the film making begin!
See this BVP wiki for all the details: http://bonnernetwork.pbwiki.com/Bonner+Video+Project+2008
Jesse Call and Alex Overmiller, AmeriCorps VISTA participants working through a matching grant by the Bonner Foundation, decided recently to link the tech-savvy nature of college students to the needs of the community in hopes of finding a way to keep the two connected.
They created volunteer.concord.edu, a website “set up to connect the agencies in the area to the students, faculty and staff that are already looking for new and interesting ways to serve their communities,” Call, of Pocahontas, Va., explained recently. “We wanted to hook them up with the agencies that need them.”
But while college admissions offices like to see service work from applicants, they’ve rarely rewarded it with financial aid — or at least not the way they do for star athletes and students with high SAT scores. Of the $29 billion U.S. colleges and universities awarded in institutional grants last year, only a tiny fraction goes to service scholarships.
In the short-term that may not change much, with colleges squeezing their aid budgets to help students in sudden financial need because of the economy.
But longer-term, service-based merit aid looks like an idea with momentum. Colleges are catching up to the interests of an especially civic-minded generation of students, building curricula around service-learning and eager to attract the most ambitious students. And backers are excited about the election of Barack Obama, who made federal financial aid in exchange for community service his centerpiece college affordability campaign proposal.
The federal work-study program now requires schools to use 7 percent of their funds paying students for community service work. But more schools are now putting up some of their own aid dollars.
This edition of the Weekly is a conglomeration of a few different things; announcements, partner profiles, and news. I hope that it is helpful and thought-provoking as you go about your leadership in Bonner.
Announcements:
Call for Student/ Campus Profiles
Each month we’re trying to highlight a different Bonner Student/ School/Program in the Weekly to start sharing ideas and good practices across campuses. If you think you or your Bonner program has something special to share with the Bonner Network, please let Emily know!
Reminder to Update your Congress Action Plan pages on the Wiki!
We still need to see updates from Congress Reps on the Congress Action plan pages. Please work on them before all the great ideas circulating from congress get cluttered amongst all your schoolwork. For an example of an updated one, check out Rhodes’ http://bonnernetwork.pbwiki.com/Rhodes+Congress+Action+Planning
Nominations for AmeriCorps Spirit of Service Award
The deadline to submit nominations for the 2009 Learn and Serve America Spirit of Service Awards is fast approaching. Don’t miss this opportunity to recognize your outstanding AmeriCorps or Learn and Serve students (e.g., working on the Serve 2.0 initiative and service), educators, programs, and corporate partners by nominating them for this annual award. Learn and Serve America will pay tribute to these individuals and programs during a special presentation at the National Service-Learning Conference, on March 18-21 in Nashville.
The College of New Jersey Bonners will be hosting a Hunger Banquet (like the one held at WVW Congress on Nov. 20th. Anyone is invited, and there is a suggested $2 donation at the door. Bonners in the area are encouraged to attend. For more information contact: Rana Shariatdoust, shariat2@tcnj.edu
If your school is hosting a large Bonner event and would like surrounding schools to know about it, please email Emily with that information and she will put it in the weekly.
Partner Profiles:
Every few weeks we will highlight one of the national partners that work with us here at the Foundation. This week’s spotlight is on RESULTS. RESULTS attended both Bonner Congress and the Fall Director’s Meeting last week. Their work is focused on ending global hunger and poverty, making them a perfect group to highlight as we start an initiative centered on Issue-Based Service here at the Foundation (a bit of a preview for those of you attending SLI in May…)
RESULTS describes themselves as, “a nonprofit grassroots advocacy organization committed to creating the political will to end poverty by empowering individuals to speak out for effective solutions to poverty. RESULTS has chapters in over 100 U.S. cities and international affiliates in six countries. RESULTS Education Fund focuses on building the public will to end poverty by educating the public, media, and leaders through forums, trainings, press call and research.”a
To learn more about RESULTS watch this video or check out their website at www.results.org
Barak Obama posted his first YouTube address and this week’s focuses on the economic situation. Obama will be using these YouTube addresses as a modification of the weekly Presidential radio address, in the hopes that it will reach a broader audience. I strongly encourage you to check these out on a regular basis to stay on top of what is going on in our nation. Here is the link to this week’s…
Trawling the depths of the Internet and the archives of some of my favorite webcomics, I came across this (slightly archaic) piece of virtual cartography. Some of it is pretty out-of-date, but the core principle remains sound. What do you guys think? Notice the “Compass Rose-Shaped Island” near the center. Where would you place the online community of the Bonner Network?
Sooo… who remembers back to the last Congress all Bonner Planning session on Sunday when we were working on the wiki pages? Well, there was a bit of a glitch with the system and we had to re-link all of the Congress Action Plan Documents. If you already updated your school’s planning documents on the wiki, we are asking that you post that information again for us. If you have not worked on your action plan (consider yourself lucky) and get working on those updates! We apologize to those of you who had already completed the work.
In Monday’s edition of the New York Times I read an article on how the current financial crisis is impacting colleges and universities. Many of your own school administrators were quoted in the article. I would encourage you to read the article and think about how your school is making policy and what might be the best ways for schools to be responding to students with increased financial need. Please post on ways that you think schools could better help students financially, and how you as students can share this information with your school administration.
Also in Monday’s times, there was an interactive mosaic and update on Katrina relief in New Orleans. I know that many of you have been down to New Orleans with your Bonner programs and other service groups. It’s an interesting complication of interviews and images detailing how much clean-up work and rebuilding of the community still needs to be done. Check it out, and post on either your experiences in the Gulf Coast region or your thoughts on the subject. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/08/29/us/20080831_KATRINA_GRAPHIC.html
Gospel’s Technology Corner
Good afternoon, friends. This inaugural episode of Gospel’s Technology Corner in the Bonner Congress Weekly will describe the manifold virtues of the RSS Feed, and Google’s method of managing it.
Do you have dozens of websites, all of which update from time to time? Wouldn’t it be great if you could go to one website, which would display the most recent updates to a given page? Google Reader is that website. You can add what’s called an RSS Feed to your Google Reader collection, and it will display updates whenever they appear.
For a full tutorial on Google Reader, check out this site. When you’re done creating your Google Reader account, be sure to add these Bonner-related Feeds!
In an attempt to make stronger links between our social media, here’s a blurb from our weekly update (sent through regular old email).
October is a great month to highlight your Bonner community partners. There’s an entire section of the Bonner Network Wiki dedicated to Community Partners: http://bonnernetwork.pbwiki.com/Community+Partnerships. First year students should have opportunities to shadow and explore. Other students should be regularly engaging in service opportunities with 1-2 primary service sites. One of the ways we know this is going well is through the information entered into BWBRS (Bonner Web-Based Reporting System). Is your agency information complete? Are your service opportunities clearly written? All of this information, along with students’ actual encounters with community partners, impact the writing of CLAs. When was the last time you glanced at the CLAs: Making Them Great guide? (download the file here) Still need inspiration? Oberlin College does a wonderful job of connecting community closely to students’ service. You can find resources on their website http://www.oberlin.edu/bcsl/
Howdy, folks. I’m Gospel Johnstone – I’m the new Congress/Serve 2.0 intern.
Basically, I’m working here at HQ to educate and encourage the prevalence of new media and social networking for us and for you. Translation: friend me on Facebook!
While I’m an old technology hand, I’m newly involved in the sort of civic engagement that Bonner does, so I’m hoping to learn far more from you than you’ll get out of me. That said – if any of you have technology questions, help setting up a blog or a wiki, a little computational encouragement, or what have you, feel free to e-mail me at gjohnstone@bonner.org.
So, as I’m starting an exciting new job, and all these civic engagement-y ideas are rolling around in my head, what should I find on the infinite tubes but an interview with Michelle Obama talking about her hopes and dreams for her husband’s new job. Lots of it has to do with their family and the transition, but there’s a few paragraphs in there about the work she hopes to be doing. Check it out (and be sure to notice the second page):
So what do you think? Is lack of funding the only problem facing AmeriCorps and organizations like it? What about this idea that having a diverse group working on a project will force learning from all sides? There’s a conversation in here about giving back – is service and engagement a matter of giving back, or a matter of giving?
I welcome your thoughts and comments – drop me a line, anytime.
Welcome to Weekly #1! Each week we at the Foundation will put out a weekly email and blog post (or some other form of communication) full of fun Bonner information, current events, civic engagement possibilities, and things to think about. The hope is that this information will be useful to you in your roles as leaders in your campus programs. Please send us ideas and thoughts about things you would like to see in the weeklies. We want these to be helpful and relevant to you!
So, it’s been over a week since we have returned from West Virginia! I hope you all had safe journeys home and are now sufficiently caught up on your school work and sleep.
Everyone should Facebook Emily - this will be an important vehicle for communication over the next few months – so please take the time.
Let’s get down to business:
- What thoughts have come up since Congress? What questions do you have? In what ways have you used what you’ve learned on your campuses already? Post here and let us know!
- Last night, we experienced an historic moment in our nation’s history – regardless of your political affiliation. We spent a significant amount of time at Congress talking about the importance of getting to the polls and having your voice heard. Now that the election is over, it’s critical to remember that our work is not done. You, who serve your communities daily, know better than anyone that people in our nation are struggling, and fundamental change needs to be made. Stay connected, stay informed, and stay passionate about making that change happen! Remember that despite party lines and political affiliations, we have to unite as a country if we are to accomplish anything.
Last night, both John McCain and Barak Obama talked about this unity. I encourage you all to watch both of their speeches if you have not done so already.
Jamie Williams, the new Bonner Coordinator at Allegheny College, visited the Bonner Foundation offices in Princeton, NJ last week so we took the opportunity to record a short video so she could introduce herself to the Bonner community. Jamie’s a graduate of Allegheny and the Bonner Program, as you’ll learn from our conversation which took place after a long day with our staff and a visit to The College of New Jersey.
