The Whole Person:  With a concern for the whole person – body, mind, soul – we bring students, educators, entrepreneurs, and community experts together to collaborate in learning-oriented works of community engagement and development.  These efforts are transformational for everyone involved.

Collaboration:  Through each of our own stories we have come to the conclusion that collaborative becoming outweighs individualistic becoming.  A complete focus on the self and on self-development leads to having or possessing more, which is a form of dehumanization.  Development in the context of community and interpersonal space cultivates mutuality and collaboration that is rooted in deep personal character.

Social Fabric:  The foundation of all community achievement is relatedness (Block, 2009).  “How we bring people together and engage matters as much as if not more than our concerns about the content of what we present.  So, how are we going to be when we gather together?  Social fabric is created one room at a time and is formed in small steps.”

Life:  “Aliveness” is an integral part of every step along the way from design to creation to implementation.  An others-orientation cultivates life, passion, and “aliveness.”  “If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday…..You shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”

Organic Growth:  In communities, sustainable changes usually happen organically.  These changes occur locally, slowly, and on small scales (Block, 2009).  They are typically initiated at the grassroots level.  Large-scale, well-funded programs are typically initiated from top-down, driven to achieve fast returns, and do not produce lasting results.  Block argues that “the inorganic practice of predicting or mapping out the path to success may become an obstacle to achieving our purposes.  As an organic model evolves and succeeds on its own terms, it begins to grow, gain attention, and achieve a level of scale that touches large numbers of people.”

References

Block, P. (2009).  Community: The structure of belonging.  San Fransisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.