By: Adriane Distor
On August 28th and 29th, I had the privilege to spend an extensive amount of time getting to know this semester’s batch of Community Engaged Learning Facilitators (CELFs). There was no better way to embrace the start of the school year than to be in the presence of such an extraordinary group of passionate student leaders! Despite coming from multiple disciplines and having diverse career paths, within the group of 14 students, we had two things in common: 1) we were all excited to be back in-person again and 2) we were all driven to make a difference in our local community. Truly, the pandemic has disrupted a great majority of our lives and established a new “normal”. Despite this challenge, our returning Community Engaged Learning Facilitators (CELFs) continue to be enthusiastic in finding creative ways to serve our community. Along with our seven returning CELFs this semester, we are blessed to have seven new CELFs join us in our journey of finding innovative ways to connect with our local community partners.
As this semester’s CELF Program Coordinator, I had the opportunity to co-lead training with the Director of Community Engaged Learning, Laura Wilmarth Tyna.,. We spent the first day with our new CELFs (Alexciana Castaneda, Audrey Fetcho, Rob Gaeta, Emily McManus, Ashley Macica, Ernesto Saravia, and Katie Szymkiewicz) and dedicated time to team building, learning about the importance of reflection, practicing how to facilitate a reflection, navigating through issues one may encounter, and discussing the qualities and benefits of an effective community engaged learning environment. On our second day, our returning CELFs (Dominick Bartels, Erin Biccochi, Jacquelyn Buryj, Natalie Lif, Angel Olivo, and Amy Tracy) and University Ministry Intern and liaison to OCEL, Grace Crumbaugh, joined us in welcoming our new CELFs into the program.
In the first half of the second day, our new CELFs facilitated their well-planned and successfully executed reflections for the entire group with themes involving friendship and beginning a new academic year in a time of uncertainty. Also, through fun group activities such as a scavenger hunt and building spaghetti towers, our CELFs were able to get to know each other and learn that they are never alone in this journey. Overall, spending time with these incredible individuals over the weekend was an inspiring experience. Regardless of the chaos we might feel in society, currently, there will always be an amazing group of people whose kindness, passion, and sincerity will encourage you to see the beauty in human connections. I am personally optimistic and looking forward to how these exceptional student leaders will inspire more Lewis Students to empower and listen to the unique needs of our community.
