Tag: hope

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HOPE Office Launched for Student Volunteers

After a half semester of planning, an official HOPE office has been opened in the campus center basement for student assistance. According to Hanna Kahler and Jina Libby, juniors both involved in the formation of the office, HOPE aims to both track student volunteer service and connect students with new volunteer opportunities in the area.

Greg Bish, director of student programs, maintains that the initiation of a HOPE office is a continuation of a strong tradition of service at the college. “There have been variations of the HOPE office through the years. The HOPE office as we’re currently experiencing it started just this year. If you look at service, service goes all the way back to Willard J. Houghton,” he said.

Courtesy of voiceseducation.org
Courtesy of voiceseducation.org

One of the current projects of the HOPE office has been the use of “Impact Cards” to quantify student involvement in the community as volunteers. Said Bish, “It’s an effort to do some data-gathering and not just anecdotally say our students do service. We do know they do service, but we’re just trying to find a way to collect information about what they’re doing.” The cards, which work in a way similar to timecards, may be filled out on a weekly basis and may include hours from multiple volunteer projects.

Initial response to Impact Cards has been slow. “[The cards have] been trickling in,” said Bish. “I wouldn’t say there’s been a huge overflow yet. We’ve not gotten hundreds back by any means, but we’re in the early stages.” Kahler added that the office has recorded about 46 ½ volunteer hours from students via Impact Cards. “To me, that is satisfactory. Not as amazing as I would want, but it’s satisfactory,” added Libby. She explained that while the recorded hours may be low, the depth of student volunteering is notably higher. “If you take the JET program alone, there are approximately 20 students going down every Saturday, and that’s six hours a Saturday, eight Saturdays. We’re talking over 700 hours,” she explained.

Impact Cards, while a measure of student volunteering for the college, also aim to be a motivator for current volunteers and those interested in volunteering. “On an individual level, we’re trying to encourage volunteer service in the community, so when people get to 25 hours, we want to … recognize that somehow,” explained Kahler.

Also part of the office’s work is connecting students with potential volunteer opportunities. Through connections with the Southern Tier Regional Volunteer Center, a database that lists opportunities between Jamestown and Binghamton, the office is able to search a pool of current needs for volunteers in the Southern Tier area and pass them on to students with specific volunteer interests.

Locally, the office has worked on establishing volunteer connections with Wellspring Ministries in Belfast, NY; Absolut Care, a nursing and rehabilitation center in Houghton, NY; and the Powerhouse Youth Center in Fillmore, NY. One of Kahler’s and Libby’s current tasks is to publicize a project over spring break which would call for student volunteers for Wellspring Ministries. Another task is to involve student-run clubs and honor societies in leading activities for youth at the Powerhouse center. Explained Bish, “We would ask different clubs and organizations to sign up … and do something related to [their] club. If it’s the French Club, they could be making crepes. If it’s Sigma Zeta, they could be doing a science experiment. Basically, [we’re] trying to get clubs and organizations, or RAs and floors, to … take one day and go volunteer at the after-school program and provide some kind of activity…”

As for long-term projects, Kahler hopes to better integrate volunteer service with classroom instruction. “We’re also doing a faculty survey to see how much service learning there is in the classrooms. It’s something recently developed, so it’s not going to be sent out for a while,” she said. Both she and Libby stressed the importance of service at Houghton. “Looking at it from a Christian perspective, it’s one of our callings, as a Christian, to serve,” said Libby.

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Opinions

Death, Joy, and Christmastime

Christmas (or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa etc., but for my purposes Christmas), is fast approaching. School has a tendency to push the holiday to the background, but very soon we will be suddenly remembering that we must buy gifts for parents and siblings and best friends before slogging home through December slush. And when we arrive, we will be faced with the reality of how we feel about this particular holiday.

Christmas is associated with joy and warm fuzzies, and comes with a wildly heightened atmosphere, more so than any other holiday in our society. It’s an atmosphere fed by people of ymany different backgrounds—Christians place exaggerated emphasis on family, love, and giving of oneself, and in general, everyone focuses on parties, food, festive décor, good cheer, and buying presents—of which consumer culture takes eager advantage.

In the movie Love Actually, a compilation romantic comedy set on the backdrop of the countdown to Christmas, the characters constantly use Christmas as both a reason and an excuse for their various behaviors. A secretary confesses her love to the Prime Minister, “Because, if you can’t say it at Christmas, when can you?” A groom’s best friend confesses his love to the bride, “Just because it’s Christmas, and at Christmas you tell the truth.” A boss urges his employee to confess her love to her co-worker, because “It’s Christmas.” Much is expected at Christmas. Much is connoted—people are meant to experience love and people are meant to travel to their childhood homes to gather around warm hearths and exchange heartfelt gifts with loving family members.

It’s a difficult time to have bad memories.

christmasThe hefty amount of people with disjointed families and/or scarring experiences can easily feel marginalized when the seeming majority is swimming in a dream of sugar plums and packages tied up in string. My parents announced their divorce in the fall of my 7th grade year. Christmas was the last day we were ever together as a family. Fortunately, my experience has not soured my feelings towards the holiday itself as much as it could have, and as much as it certainly has for others with similar or worse experiences.

Two years ago in a chapel service before Christmas break, Dr. Bruxvoort Lipscomb read her essay “On Death in December,” explaining her associations between death and Christmas. She listed three tragic deaths her life that had each occurred in December, and each involved a mother losing a son. Her essay focused on a painting of Madonna and Child by Bellini in which the Christ-child appears dead, and she pointed out that Christmas is, in reality, the celebration of a baby who was born so that he could eventually die. She concluded with confession that when she thinks of the births of her own children, she thinks also of their inevitable death. In that moment, it seemed to me an unnecessarily morbid distortion of what should be a joyful holiday.

A few weeks later, my aunt died.

I’ve since experienced my fair share of grief. My aunt was the second in a series of deaths of four loved ones over the past two years, and marked the first time that I glimpsed, from my stubborn place several rows back at the viewing, a disquietingly real body within a casket. Her death made true for me the words that Bruxvoort Lipscomb had shared: Christmas is indeed a season about “birthing death.”

While this truth may not have always been apparent to me throughout my life, I know now that it was the only reality for my mother. At childhood Christmases she would ever hang a small stocking for my deceased sister above the fireplace alongside the rest of the family’s larger, teeming stockings. She asked that we write notes to Baby Jesus and place them in the stocking, and I never understood the connection between my sister and Jesus, until two years ago. But for her, and for Bruxvoort Lipscomb, and for many others like them, Christmas has always meant something a little different.

It’s common for people with contrasting experiences to feel animosity towards one another. Those who have had mostly pleasant Christmases throughout their lives, as I have, tend to feel that those who appear more cynical are putting a damper on the Christmas spirit. Those who have not been so fortunate tend to feel isolated and misunderstood. Christmas needs to be sacred. Christmas needs to be changed. Christmas is perfect. Christmas is unimportant.

I don’t think Christmas is really either of these things.

Similar to the inflated perception of what a “Christian family” should look like, the concept of Christmas tradition is also far from what the Christian religion would actually call for. We started out with the basic idea for a celebration of Jesus’ birth, and tacked on pagan practices along the way, partly to aid with evangelical efforts, partly just for fun. Like Valentine’s Day, the holiday is now so strongly tied to distorted, Hollywood versions of love that do more harm than good. But Valentine’s Day is a simple holiday, based primarily on legends and trivial customs. Christmas is not such a throwaway holiday. Christmas has roots that are vitally important to Christian beliefs, and it should not be treated in the same way. Both overly positive and overly negative perspectives on Christmas are too simplified to do it justice.

I have found great hope in the Christmas story of Jesus’ birth and promise, but I have also found great hope in Bruxvoort Lipscomb’s version of Christmas, one that takes an honest look at the future of the baby Jesus. Taking both viewpoints together can lend to the holiday the depth and dignity that it deserves. Don’t cheat yourself this Christmas by focusing on only one aspect of your experience. To be sure, Christmas is a time of deep joy, but it is not a holiday to be taken lightly.

 

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News

HOPE: A New Office for Service and Outreach

To encourage dedication of service amongst Houghton students towards the community and surrounding areas, the college has created a new office for Houghton Outreach Programs & Education, or as it is also known as, HOPE. This new office will provide a centralized space on campus where students can learn and participate in upcoming community service opportunities.

Courtesy of voiceseducation.org
Courtesy of voiceseducation.org

The HOPE office, which will be located in the basement of the Campus Center, will offer resources to a current database listing needs of services to students, faculty, and staff.

It will provide students with the chance to discover service opportunities that will accompany their passions in life and study. Gregory Bish, Director of Student Programs said, “I think that one of the key things for the office is actually just to help us better understand and recognize what students are already doing. But I also think that as students, they are looking for opportunities that will be a mechanism for them to find places that are the best fit for them and help their college to be more effective.”

While this new office is meant to provide information and opportunities for community service, Dr. Robert Pool, Vice President of Student Life, explained there is more to what the office can offer students. He said, “The students are learning about themselves, how much they learn about the world in which they live, how they learn to coordinate efforts around needs. There is a lot of learning that goes on that’s very transferable to the outside world when you engage in thought for service.”

Before HOPE, there had never been a coordinated report of the services volunteered by Houghton students. With this new office, the college will be able to obtain that information by reporting data of the volunteer services taking place. This will allow the office to evaluate its programs and services.  “Internally, we want to know how we are meeting the needs of the community” said Pool.

Miriam Griffith, a senior student, expressed her opinion about the new HOPE office, saying, “Service is a pivotal aspect of Houghton College; it seems as though Houghton would not be the same if it did not have a deep love of giving back to those in need. I feel as though having an on-campus office dedicated to providing service opportunities for Houghton students is a great thing and I cannot wait to be a part of what this office is planning.”

At the moment the new office is at the stage of research and development, students and staff currently working together to find out the needs of the community. Currently, Jina Libby, senior, is part of this student staff. Part of her duties include going to areas in need of service, finding what their volunteer needs are, and determining how the college can better prepare the students to address those needs through service.

The HOPE office has identified three places on which they aim to work as their pilot projects. “We are working with the Fillmore Powerhouse, the Houghton nursing home, and Wellspring Ministries in Belfast,” Bish elaborated. Students will be able to start volunteering as soon as this spring.

Pool said “There’s really no centralized place where anyone can say, ‘how can I serve,’ ‘what is available,’ ‘who needs me,’ ‘what are my talents’ and ‘how can I explore those talents by serving others in a volunteer capacity.’” HOPE’s goal is to change that. “That’s what this office is all about” said Pool.