How To Be Involved in the Asheville Community

My Community Engaged Scholar Journey

By UNC Asheville

May 6^th, 2022

Being a student at UNC Asheville, I was unaware of the amazing opportunities that the Key Center offers prior to taking a service-learning class last year in Professional Writing with Associate Professor of English Amanda Wray. Since then I've explored the resources that the Key Center offers for students to get involved with the community, such as blood drives, volunteer opportunities, and how to become a Community Engaged Scholar myself.

Moving to a new town for college can be difficult, particularly when it comes to making connections and feeling involved in order to make the most of this new chapter. It is important to consider not only the campus community, but also the Asheville community. By becoming a Community Engaged Scholar I was able to get involved with a community nonprofit organization that I was interested in. And I’m not alone. This year, ten students, including myself, will graduate with the Community Engaged Scholar distinction, joining the 73 students who took part in this journey before us.

2022 CES's at Undergraduate Research Symposium

BECOME A COMMUNITY ENGAGED SCHOLAR

Community Engaged Scholar is an honor distinction granted at graduation.By being a Community Engaged Scholar, any student can have the opportunity to be deeply involved with a community partner of their choice through research and action, and get to present at the Undergraduate Research Symposium.

My journey began with accidentally taking a service learning class, LANG 354: Professional Writing, which means that my class was working directly with a community partner, the Asheville Poverty Initiative. In this class, I helped write grants for the Asheville Poverty Initiative to get funding to keep doing work to help the individuals experiencing homelessness in Asheville. From there I learned that by continuing to work in the community, I could qualify to become a Community Engaged Scholar. So I set out to find a community partner that I wanted to work with. I always had a passion for animal welfare and nonprofit animal rescues so I reached out to one of my favorite shelters to visit in the area, Brother Wolf.

I worked with Brother Wolf over the course of fall 2022 to help with their foster parent outreach. From my experience, I learned hands-on the work that it takes to run an animal organization, I met people and animals from all kinds of backgrounds, and I learned a lot about my dream of opening my own animal shelter.

I mainly assisted with helping recruit foster parents for their foster program. Foster parents take shelter animals into their homes for an amount of time to help relieve stress from being in the kennel and open up more spaces so that Brother Wolf can save more animals. I got quite close with the staff there and although most of my time was spent working with the administration team, I had plenty of time to spend time with the animals which were my favorite part. One of my favorite experiences was when I helped cover the adoption center desk on a Saturday and helped a couple adopt a cat!

How To Be Involved in the Asheville Community

I've also just completed taking my second service-learning course that is partnered with the WNC Broadband Project, helping them campaign and reach more people about the importance of internet access. I put together my research and experience from my time with my community partner and am getting ready to present my final project at the Undergraduate Research Symposium.

COMMUNITY ENGAGED SCHOLARS: PAST AND PRESENT

Many other students have partnered with a variety of organizations since the program launched in 2011 and have worked on all kinds of interesting projects that they choose.

Sarah Branagan

Sarah Branagan is a senior majoring in Environmental Management and Policy with minors in psychology and professional writing.

Her passion for environmental education led her to work with Blue Ridge Audubon to help them with their field trip program at the Beaver Lake Bird Sanctuary in Asheville.

“I started helping with the summer camps and then helped with field trip planning. I learned the importance of environmental education at an early age,” said Branagan.

She enjoyed getting involved, being part of the community, and getting to do it independently, while also having the chance to explore herself in the process.

“The CES distinction gives you the outlet to give to the community, but also use that knowledge from school into action in the community,” says Branagan.

Branagan hopes to use her studies in environmental management and policy professionally in the future.

Sarah with the S.E.E. Day Camp for the blind or visually impaired last summer.

Flo Jacques

Flo Jacques is an alumni of UNC Asheville who graduated in Fall 2020. Her project was assessing the impact of the Asheville City Schools Foundation on the community. She found the project after taking an applied social science and research with Lindy Hewitt, professor of sociology, which was a service learning class.

“I took a lot of service learning courses just because of my career path in sociology along with a high school social studies license. So I was very involved with the community in a variety of facades,” stated Jacques.

Prior to taking the applied social science and research course, she had been doing research since freshman year, starting with the African Americans in Western North Carolina Conference.

Her course project with Asheville City Schools Foundation began with attending a board meeting with Asheville City Schools to learn more about what was going on in the community at a school district level and main concerns. The project was based on her internship with Asheville Middle School as a racial equity intern. During the internship she was helping middle school students start their own research.

“Because the goal was to assess the impact, we did hold focus groups sessions including qualitative and quantitative indicators, and separated the groups confidently and dismissed any bias in the conversation,” Jacques explained.

She felt as though because she took advantage of her time at UNC Asheville by doing large amounts of research and being active in the Asheville community; it helped her stand out in the professional world which led to many job opportunities.

She now works as an admission counselor over the Triangle area for UNC Asheville, as well as being a research consultant for a local organization in Asheville.

“It's important for students to know that you want to be involved in the community in any shape or form. The Key Center is a great resource to get involved,” states Jacques.

“It’s important for students to know that you want to be involved in the community in any shape or form. The Key Center is a great resource to get involved,” stated Jacques.

WHAT IS THE KEY CENTER?

Ready to find your own way to get involved? The Key Center is the best place for students to get involved in the community and learn more about local nonprofits, initiatives, and events that benefit the Western North Carolina area.

By working with the Key Center you get to have new relationships and network outside of the campus in the community, like I got to do with the Brother Wolf staff. Taking advantage of the opportunities also gives students the ability to further develop their perspectives and learn new skills that they can take with them in the future.

Personally, I got to really dive into my passion for animal welfare in a way I have never had before, as well as learn how to act in a professional environment and work with a leadership team that I hope to stay in touch with. My partnership with Brother Wolf that the CES gave me opened my eyes to the possibilities that I could have in my business as well as how to use my Mass Communication major in a nonprofit.

In my look into the Key Center, I learned that they not only host community services but they also help with community-based research, and service-learning through specialized courses, events, and educational programs.

“CES is such an expansive program that so many students can do such amazing things in. It's a great opportunity for students because it's so diverse in their projects and helps anybody with anything,” stated Emma Gravitt.

Emma Gravitt is a sophomore at UNC Asheville who is a community fellow for the Key Center.

She works to support outreach and education efforts on campus and works with a variety of nonprofits, including Babies Need Bottoms.

“What I wish people knew about the Key Center is that it is a place for obvious community engagement and volunteer opportunities that really serve students in a professional and academic way for personal growth; however, the Key Center also brings people together and is a safe place for others,” says Gravitt.

Her work with food insecurity, period poverty, and choosing between essential needs is really important to her, and she hopes to educate people on that intersectionality.

Prior to working with the Key Center, she didn’t know about the Community Engaged Scholar distinction. She’s since learned about the benefits of the program and hopes lots of students will take advantage of it.

Each semester the Key Center hosts service and educational opportunities both on and off campus. On campus opportunities include blood drives with the American Red Cross, diaper packaging events with Babies Need Bottoms, and food drives for MANNA Foodbank and Food Equity Initiative, and off campus opportunities include garden work days with Bountiful Cities, Tuesday markets with CIMA, and Friday markets with Bounty & Soul.

If you are interested in getting more involved in the Asheville and Buncombe community, you can reach out to the Key Center or visit: United Way: Hands On (you might use the direct link to their database: https://www.handsonasheville.org/)