Active Engagement in an Effort to Serve the Community

Prompt: What does Citizenship mean to you and what does your sorority do to instill citizenship in you?

To me, the title of this blog describes citizenship perfectly. It is more than just voting on election day and recycling your pop cans. It is being engaged in the community and taking responsibility for things that need to happen. Community service is a huge part of this. Take action on the needs of the community and do your part to make it a better place for everyone. I also really like the phrase civic responsibility. It is our duty as citizens to take responsibility for the community in which we live. If a part of the community is struggling, we should all be struggling together and working toward a solution. The song 'Do you feel' by The Rocket Summer really puts citizenship into perspective for me. It brings up some of the excuses of why people don't take responsibility for the world that they live in and for me it's a motivator to not act like the song describes.

"I'm thinking 'bout other things I heard about today

all this week and tomorrow

and how these hands can create some better things, a better ring

but you see for now I got my own things"

These first few lines claim that we can all create better things, help the community and make a difference in the world. But the easiest thing is to blow it off with the last line 'but you see for now I got my own things' Everyone is always going to have their own things going on, but it is our civic responsibility to care about the community around us as well.

Here's a video of the song. It's great:) Plus all my favorite people are in it: look for Andrew McMahon, Alex Gaskarth and the two boys from Paramore

I love the part where it says to 'keep preaching to heal the world, lip service makes us look great.' A lot of times people are a lot of talk and no action. It's great to say we need to heal the world, make it a better place etc. but each and every citizen needs to be personally responsible for doing this. To me, that is citizenship.

To answer the second part of the question, my sorority and the Sorority and Fraternity Community as a whole does so many things to instill a sense of citizenship in me. It starts with the mission of Alpha Xi Delta. Part of it is to instill community responsibility. It is the mission of my sorority to provide us all with a sense of citizenship. The emphasis on community service has really helped to do this. There are constantly opportunities to make a difference in the community and the more involved I've gotten with service, the better citizen I've become. Also, with all the leadership training I have gotten, I've really learned that no matter what you want to do just go for it. If you want to change the world, just do it (like Nike). This has really motivated me that with enough passion I can not only be a good citizen but really work to better the communities that I belong in.