Giving Builds Community and Creates Opportunities
What motivates you to give, and how does it impact your sense of purpose?
How can we ensure our giving leads to long-term positive outcomes for individuals and communities?
What small, actionable steps can we take as individuals to build a more compassionate collective society?
Our sixth episode of the “Youth Community Journalism” show addressed these questions and more. Produced at SPEAK MPLS in Minneapolis, the show focused on giving and how we can strengthen communities through compassion.
Youth Community Journalism — Episode 6: Building Compassionate Communities
Our guests:
Kali Pliego, Minneapolis crime prevention specialist
Juan Linares, Mercado Central cofounder and community leader
Steph Serrato, community engagement specialist, local nonprofit
Youth community journalists (ages 9-15) from the youth community journalism team at the Strong Mind Strong Body Foundation’s Youth Community Journalism Institute talked with the guests about these questions.
Our hosts:
Jesus Rojas, grade 10, age 15, Edison High School
Cal Ortiz, grade 4, age 9, Risen Christ School
Yareli Peña Howard, grade 8, age 13
“I do believe as a community we are all interdependent on each other,” said Kali Pliego. “But that means it’s not just there are people that are the people who help and then there there’s the people who receive. No, we all help, and we all receive. And so I like to get people into the mentality of what can I offer as well as what do I need to receive from others.”
“Compassion is such a beautiful topic to talk about, but it’s also I think a hard topic to talk about because it looks different for everybody,” said Steph Serrato. “So compassion to me means caring about myself and also caring about others because if I don’t take care of myself, I can’t help others and so having compassion for people really means that we all are caring about what’s happening in the world and also caring about what’s happening around ourselves.”
“As a board member of Central Guadalupano [a nonprofit in Minneapolis that provides human and social services for immigrant and refugee families], we always are facing challenges in terms of how do we keep this program that is an important program in the community. It’s an afterschool program, and it’s a wonderful resource for working families that will help also their kids to get ahead in school. That program is a program that not just helps them to do homework or be mentored in math science or any other subjects, but also they give them an opportunity to learn an instrument and also they also get some English language classes to improve their English. Most of these kids are from fifth and sixth grade, but the idea is to maintain this program, which is housed in south Minneapolis. … Folks who have the opportunity to support programs like this [need] to look at as an investment because we’re investing in the future of our communities and what better investment can you make to invest in the future of children. … Now is a wonderful time to give back, and the best way to give back is by making an investment on programs like this that will encourage and nurture children to continue becoming not just good students but also who knows the next doctors, the next scientists, or the next president. So please if you can, contribute.”
If you want to support our youth community journalism solutions program, you can make a tax-deductible donation here.
