Sara Harenchar's Reflections

As a Program Coordinator for Immersion Projects, I help to recruit students to become part of off-campus immersion experiences, where they both volunteer in and learn about the community which they visit. These experiences are meant to connect back to the campus in some way, so the social issues on which the projects are based should relate to issues we also encounter in Adams County. As Level II PC for the projects, I have designed my own Spring Break project to Su Casa Catholic Worker family shelter in Chicago, IL. The social issues we encountered as a group are numerous: among them Latino issues and immigration, urban homelessness, and abuse. We volunteered and lived at the Su Casa shelter for the week.

Since the Immersion Project community partners are our site partners, the relationship is formed while on the projects, and through communication with our site partners. There is also the working relationship among the Immersion project PC’s and Hisela, and we meet regularly to ensure that all the work is equally divided and that we are all contributing to the success of the projects. My community partner for this year was my site coordinator at Su Casa, Gina, and the biggest challenge there was forming a new community partnership between Gettysburg and Su Casa. There were a lot of bumps along the way but the partnership really happened when we stayed in Chicago for a week. Su Casa was an excellent partner because they were able to provide us with resources while in the city but also to provide us with service projects in the house which really helped the families. In terms of the other Immersion Project PCs, we meet regularly to help each other out as well as stay informed about what the others are doing, and this year it has been a great partnership.

I think one of the most important lessons I have learned is that we need to make time to all meet together (the Immersion Project PCs) – and we’ve been pretty good about this. Also in terms of my site partner in Chicago (Su Casa), I learned that it is so important to be flexible to the needs of the organization. For example, we didn’t know right away what we’d be doing in the house for a week, but once we met the families and Su Casa staff helped us get used to the house, we were able to help them out with some important chores/repairs, and that helped build the partnership. We also learned that a shelter, because it is a transitional place, is a difficult place to keep partnerships going, but we realized that we had to use our one week at Su Casa to its fullest potential.

I think at the forefront circles has been a one of a kind experience mostly because I was spending 2 hrs a week one on one with women who were living in poverty. Circles has been a long experience for me since I have been with the program since spring of last year. At times, it felt like progress was so slow. At other times, it felt like the women were reporting back great things happening in their life, and that change was really happening. The best experiences I have had have been simply being part of the women’s process through the program, and seeing change happen in their lives. I think also some of the hardest experiences have been being at the meetings when the women are having a tough time, seeing women leave the program, or move to a new town, etc. Those things were hard because it effected the whole group.

One of the hardest lessons I had to learn was that Circles was more about SUPPORT first and THEN change. We (the CPS staff) wanted fast, efficient, change but the women needed time to sort things out and wanted to go at a slower pace than we expected. I am always reminding myself that these women are working mothers (mostly single), for whom this program is also another weekly obligation. So that means that they aren’t always going to be 100% with it, just like we aren’t either. Sometimes the cycle can be really frustrating, and circles has brought me even closer to it, because I see real things happening to real people which are perpetuated directly by the cycle of poverty.

My experiences in student leadership this year culminated with my trip to Chicago. I spent the first semester planning for the trip, developing a site partnership in Chicago with Su Casa, as well as working to strengthen the already established immersion projects. One of the toughest experiences we had this year was getting students to register as the cost of immersion projects climbed, and financial need increased. One of the things I really focused on for the Chicago project was keeping it cheap, and my cost was $500, considerably cheaper than most other immersion projects, and I found that some students even registered solely for this reason. We just received a large sum towards the projects though, which is great and should help this issue.

The most important thing I learned this year was that being a leader was about listening and being flexible. I spent a lot of time before Chicago planning for reflections, planning out each day, and when we arrived at Su Casa, I realized that flexibility would be my new best friend. We had to learn to operate on the schedule of the families, not our own, and also the staff who supported us while we were staying in Chicago. I also let my participants reflect amongst each other and simply facilitated without stating my own opinion or blocking anyone into feeling a certain way about our experiences. The most difficult transition for me was going from participant to leader, because it was so hard to focus on my own experience while focusing on the experience of 9 other people, as well as our site partners. This was a big learning experience for me because I instead learned from listening to my participants, and their teamwork and focus is what made the project ultimately a success.

I think one of the biggest things that comes up in my journals is the constant goal to be a better listener. This has always been a struggle for me because I love to share my own experiences, and that often leads to not listening to others points as well. One of the best ways for me to learn to listen more to others has been learning circles, since it’s almost always about the listening. Also, one of the best ways for me to really practice active listening was on my project as a leader. I also think that one of my biggest challenges has been staying organized and sticking to deadlines, and creating my own project has forced me to do that, and that’s been really helpful. I think also opening up my ideas and thoughts to others but also learning to accept my own prejudices and dealing with them has been one of the biggest growth processes for me personally and professionally.

I feel as if at CPS there are so many ways for me to not only constantly be learning but to be constantly be focused on my learning. Most of this has occurred in Circles of Support, because I stepped out of learning about poverty from books and into meeting the women who are now battling it in the program. Putting a face and name to all of these issues is what really helps me learn. I’ve learned more from Tanya, Adrienne, Carrie, and the other women at Circles than I could ever learn from a book or a staff meeting, and that’s why I know those are things I have to focus on at CPS: personal relationships. That’s what I focused on at Su Casa as well, since the partnership we formed with them is one that I’d like to see last for years to come. I think I have also learned how important it is to step outside the box of my belief system and be willing to see social justice from all sides, in order to be able to better work with others towards a common goal.