Springfield's First Food Day Celebration

This Saturday, the Springfield community came together to celebrate National Food Day for the first time.  It was $2 to get in and all the proceeds went to Ozarks Food Harvest. It was the perfect match for fundraising and fun!

I volunteered with the beau's pre-professional society and happened to be paired with some PRSSA members too. We had fun selling Smart chicken sandwiches and Quinoa salad from Momma Jean's. 

The Wilhoit Plaza was a great place for an outdoor event downtown! And the weather was beautiful, even in the middle of October.

I absolutely adored chatting with those girls. That is why I love volunteering. You never know who you will meet. 

Every moment is a moment for networking!

And Ozarks Food Harvest is such a good cause! I interned their the summer before last, and I just keep coming back because they are such a great community organization!

Do you have a place you always volunteer at?

-Beth

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Why Live in Community // Adventure in Togetherness

Greetings! This is Amber here and Bethany has asked me to do a guest blog post for her for some reason. She is pretty cool like that. Just a little background on me – I currently live in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania with my handsome husband Jay (who is also guest blogged) and three other couples in a huge house. That’s right, there are eight of us sharing life together in the same house. Does that sound crazy to you? Well, let me explain why we do it.

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Experiences in Community

Let’s begin with our experiences of living in community with other people. Both of us have had many positive experiences living with other people, and our fair share of challenges. We both lived in the dorms of Missouri State University for at least a year. 

My most significant adventure with community happened my junior year. I moved once again to a bigger house that was more inviting to community than the small apartment. I lived with my sister Emily and two other girls who challenged and sharpened me. The house, which we affectionately call “Florida” for the street that it was on, quickly became a place of refuge, good times, and deep conversations. There were often times when people just wanted to hang out somewhere, so they came to Florida for hot chocolate and board games. Florida is where three of us realized that we were going to marry our wonderful husbands. 

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For the first time, I felt like I was able to use my home as a ministry and that is because of the community that existed inside the walls of that house. We challenged one another and spurred one another on towards love and good deeds. There is a Proverb that says “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” That is what Florida did for me. It sharpened me and I like to think that it sharpened the other three girls as well. Going home to people who love you and want to challenge you to become the person God has designed you to be was a constant source of growth spiritually.

Ever since my time in Florida, I have been hungry for community. I have lived with an incredible family from my church, my sweet oldest sister and now I live with my beloved whom I married about two ago. All three of those living arrangements have been wonderful and blessed. However, they lacked community that Florida had. They lacked the iron sharpening iron.

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Benefits of Community Dwelling

The apostles in Acts were of “one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. There was not a needy person among them.” (Acts 4:32 & 34) Jay and I feel like that is the best way to live our lives. To be of one accord and share your possessions with those who are in need and with brothers and sisters in the Lord. You may say that you can be in one accord with just a husband and wife, and we completely agree. However, for us, we choose to live in harmony with multiple people from different backgrounds with different gifts.

Another benefit of community has little to do with faith. It is simply a bonus benefit of community dwellers. It seems easier to live an “organic life” in community. What I mean by that, is it is easier to grow your own garden and make your own clothes and live off the natural goodness of the Lord through relying on other people. Putting a range of people together under one roof is like taking a cornucopia of skills and talents and putting them together to work toward a common goal. It is more effective to work together to make that happen.

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We don’t live in community so that it can change us into people that we are not. We desire community so that we can change the world to bridge the gap between what is and what should be. We don’t want to live in community because it is easier. We desire community because it is challenging. We don’t want to live in community to avoid the church. We desire community because we are the church. We don’t want to live in community simply because it is permissible. We desire community because it is beneficial. We don’t want to live in community to escape any person or thing. Will you join us?

If you want to learn more about our community or would like to read more about our adventures, check

out our blog at www.jayandamber.wordpress.com.

Jay and Amber's Community

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Jay Howard on Community

Hi everybody! First, thank you Bethany for inviting me to write a guest post for your super-cool blog. My focus in this post will be on the last part of the coffeeculturecommunity triad. (The only part I know anything about!) Specifically, I would like to talk a little about what I have learned from this of year living in an intentional community.

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First, Some Background

I recently graduated from college and got married. Then, motivated by a vague-but-persistent interest in “togetherness,” Amber and I decided that we wanted learn a little bit about intentional communities. To accomplish this goal, we moved to Pittsburgh, PA where a brand new intentional community called Formation House was just starting up. We have lived here almost a year.

“What is an intentional community,” you ask?

In the most basic terms, an intentional community is a planned residential community designed to have a higher degree of teamwork than other communities. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common vision, and they typically also share responsibilities and resources.

This year has been about fleshing out the details of what that means. As we have journeyed through this year we have found that living in intentional community is pretty darn cool. Formation House is a one year program, and because we have enjoyed this year so much Amber and I are already exploring ways to continue incorporating the practice of community into our lives in the future. Here in Pittsburgh we have forged close friendships, learned best-practices for community life, and eaten a lot of awesome, home-cooked meals.

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Charisms and Focus

One of the things I have learned this year is that different communities have different focuses, or “charisms” as they are called. (http://www.mattpritchard.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Charisms.pdf) Examples of charisms in intentional communities are:

meals together
self-sufficiency
voluntary simplicity
interpersonal growth
egalitarian values
prayer or spirituality

Many communities make the mistake of biting off more than they can chew.

It is common at the beginning stages to say, “Let’s pray together every night, eat breakfast together, plant a garden, get involved with the local church, practice hospitality with all our neighbors, build a park in the vacant lot across from our house, and raise chickens!”

Nobody thinks about cleaning the bathroom. But trust me, it will come up! People who are older and wiser than me recommend “doing one thing well,” and then adding more stuff after the community has established some norms.

Formation House was created to be a training ground for how to do intentional community. I would say
Formation House has three charisms.

We eat meals together 5 nights a week,
we pray together 5 nights a week, and
we meet roughly once a week to go over a curriculum which focuses on interpersonal growth.

By “interpersonal growth” I mean communication, listening skills, conflict resolution, leadership, group decision making. That sort of thing.

Those three things keep is pretty busy as a community because all three call for a good chunk of time and effort. But we still have plenty of time to do other things. For example, we each work full time. And we each have our own personal interests and hobbies.

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Skill Sharing

A big part of the fun of this year has been sharing our hobbies and interests with each other. We have quite an assortment of fun occupations between the eight of us. Some examples:

Gardening
Bee Keeping
Bird Watching
Chess
Sewing
Home Brewing
Accounting
Painting
Yoga
Bicycle Co-Op
Crocheting
Taking care of/playing with a golden retreater
Watching the science fiction television show Firefly

When eight people share their lives together, there is almost always going to be somebody around who is interested in what you are interested in. How awesome is that? When I get share my enthusiasm for chess, for example, or when somebody takes me bird watching for the first time, it is rewarding for everyone involved.

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Further Reading

In conclusion, I still have a lot to learn about community. That said, if you have any questions or are interested in reading more about community, check out my and Amber’s blog, Adventures in Togetherness, or email me at jayhoward1ATgmailDOTcom. I would love to hear from you. Thank you for reading my post about intentional community.

Disclaimer: The chipmunks have no significance. :) Pin It

Barbara Bush and Global Health Corps

This week at Missouri State University we are having our 7th annual Public Affairs Conference. I have been doing a lot this week with it, and I will share more later, but I am just so excited about tonight's presentation, I have to share NOW. 

In a nutshell, the Public Affairs Conference is a chance for Missouri State to put the Public Affairs Mission into action. The three components of the Public Affairs Mission are Community Engagement, Cultural Competence, and Ethical Leadership. Missouri State brings together speakers from all over the world to offer their expertise and spark conversation about Public Affairs. This year the theme is "Leading in a Global Society" and the chair of the conference is my advisor, Dr. Gloria Galanes. She has done such a fabulous job putting this conference together.

Well, back to tonight.

I attended the plenary address of Barbara Pierce Bush, daughter of former President George W. Bush and founder and president of Global Health Corps.

Essentially, what Global Health Corps does is act as a hub for recently graduated students to connect their expertise to a non-profit working in global health. Bush said that the program seeks to show young people that no matter their background, they can be a part of the solution for global health problems.

Her story was inspiring. Now, I want to be a "fellow", and go to Africa for one year. 

The neatest thing about the program is they partner up a foreign "fellow" with a local "fellow. My favorite story she shared was of a young man who was born in Rwanda. His family fled the genocide, and he returned to Rwanda to go to a university. He worked with Global Health Corps and an American fellow to create the first state of the art hospital for that region. Now, he serves his home country under the minister of Health.

Seriously, everyone should check out her program!

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Elsie & Emma of Red Velvet

Exciting news!

This past week, I had the privilege of interviewing Elsie & Emma of Red Velvet about how they use their blogs to promote their business.

If you have never checked these girls out online, 

you SHOULD!

They are so adorable.

And if you live in Springfield, you should check out their shop on Commercial Street.

 Red Velvet is a vintage & hand-made things boutique that also sells cupcakes! 

 I had so much fun doing my first "Broadcast Journalism" project.

If you want to check out my team's story on Social Media in the Springfield community, click here.

Also, here is the video we made:

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Feeding People

This week I got to "return to my roots".

PRSSA & Lambda Pi Eta (Communication Honor Society) teamed up for an awesome volunteer effort at Ozarks Food Harvest!

(I may have been a bit bias in my planning, but it is such a good cause!)

Two girls went with me (Susan & Tara), 

and we had a blast with this other older group.

Our job was to pack food boxes after the others sorted through dented cans and expired foods.

It was neat to be a part of tangibly feeding people  who need it most. 

Our volunteer supervisor told us we pack about 6,000 pounds of food (if I remember right),

or what they normally pack in 6 hours.

Yeah, teamwork!!!

It was great to return to my internship location and give back again!

If you are ever looking for a place to give back in the Ozarks,

check Ozarks Food Harvest out!

They are doing so much to reach a significant problem in the community.

Lindsay's current intern, Sara, and her put together this new awesome video to.

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Social Media Boot Camp with Sarah Evans

Today, I attended a Social Media Boot Camp with Sarah Evans and Social: IRL. It was incredible. Sarah Evans is a PR and new media consultant at Sevans Strategy and a guest writer for Mashable, a prestigious social media blog. She also has her own blog at PRsarahevans.com and is a "social media freak", and her Twitter is @PRsarahevans and leads a Twitter chat called #journchat.

Photo here

 Here are my 7 Social Media Tips from her today:

1. Hone in your passion when blogging. If you care about what you are writing about, it will show.
2. Twitter is all about the "re-tweet". Always leave room for others to "re-tweet" your tweet.
3. Always create a Facebook Fan page for business NOT a personal profile page.
4. Every moment is a PR moment. "Tweet" about news breaking news you experience such as earthquakes, and journalists may come to you.
5. Make Social Media Releases that are SHAREABLE with strategic time releases.
6. Blog headlines are for search engines, and "Tweets" make it attractive to click on.
7. Do not "pitch" Bloggers, but partner with them and establish relationships instead.

It was a great event, and I left with lots of ideas and networking opportunities. The Coffee Ethic even catered the event, so I baked the muffins for the event. Coffee and Community really did collide for me today! I also got to spend lots of time with my classmates and my former internship supervisor, Lindsey Neddenriep. My fellow Bear Communications member Doug and I came up with some great ideas for Urban District Alliance. I appreciated Ben Smith of Social: IRL to bringing such a reputable social media guru to Springfield, MO.

Extra tip from Sarah: Share a little "link love" with others. Link others and sometimes they will link you back. It's about the relationships you create online and continue offline.

Do you all have any tips for Social Media and PR users? Pin It

Urban District Alliance

I briefly mentioned this in an early post, but I have exciting news.

Missouri State's PRSSA, Public Relations Student Society of America, has a student PR firm called Bear Communications. This semester, we have a new client: Urban District Alliance, and I am one of the account executives for one of the teams.

Urban District Alliances is essentially Springfield's community development organizations. They work a lot with downtown. (Which I love!) They want us to create an entire PR campaign for them. I have an awesome team that I met with today for the first time including Megan Haeffele, Doug Gaehle, and Bryan Milbach.

I am looking forward to working on a real life PR project with my fellow classmates and get to invest into an area of Springfield I love. Pin It

This Christmas

With Christmas only an half an hour away, I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and remind you of something special about the season.

One of my favorite original Christmas songs is "This Christmas" by Tobymac. It reminds us to think of others less fortunate than ourselves this Christmas--especially the orphans.

This topic resonates strongly with my heart because I am passionate about orphans and caring for them.

So as you celebrate with your family, remember the children all over the world who don't have a family and breath a small prayer for them.

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Halloween Night at the Museum

Friday night, it was PRSSA's first volunteering event coordinated by me. Me, Lindsey, Travis, and Doug all helped out at The Discovery Center's Halloween Night at the Museum.

It was such a neat idea. Kids came dressed in costume and could go to different booths that were both scientific and about Halloween. The grand finale involved blowing up pumpkins. I didn't get to see it because I was cleaning, but it sounded like a lot of fun.

My favorite part of volunteering at events like this is meeting new people. I greeted with a sweet lady named Linda, who was a Drury student in a Organic Chemistry class. During candy lulls, we got to chit chat, and it is always fun to meet new people. :)

 It was so fun! I was a greeter at the door, so I had the best seat for all the cute costumes the kids wore. There were a lot of Spidermen, Woodys, and Buzz Lightyears. I also gave out candy at the end, so I think I was automatically the kids favorite volunteer.

My friend, Megan West, who works at The Discovery Center, was also there and a cat like me! It was good to see her at her work place.

Travis, my beau, was a sheriff. He was so sweet to help with my volunteer event!

Me, Doug, and Lindsey posed for a picture for at the end of the night. (Lindsey was a "cereal killer", which was pretty creative.) All in all, I would call this event a great success for The Discovery Center and PRSSA. Looking forward to more opportunities to volunteer this year!

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Community Relations for PRSSA

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So this year, I have decided to get more involved on campus at Missouri State. I mean, I am junior, so it is now or never.

Last year, my lovely aunt, who is a PR professor at Belmont, paid my membership for PRSSA (Public Relations Student Society of America) for Christmas. And this year, I am co-chair with Andrea Lensing for Community Relations. I am so excited!

This job suits me so well because I am already plugged in the Springfield community and want to help a of these non-profits any way I can, and now, I have an outlet for that.

website

Basically, we want to help volunteer at a different non-profit event each month, to get our organization's name out there and get more involved in the community. This Friday, we are volunteering at "Halloween Night at the Museum" at the Discovery Center. We get to dress up and help kids have an educational, fun Halloween.

Next month, we are also planning to help Ozarks Food Harvest's Fashion Show. This one is dear to my heart because of my internship with them this summer. I am excited to be a part of them in a small way again.

This chair position has also made me realize that I could potentially love working in Community Relations for an organization. So if non-profit PR doesn't happen for some reason, I have something to fall back on. :) Pin It

The Adventure Bug Defined

So I already alluded to this in an earlier post, but I REALLY want to travel ASAP. This summer is my last real summer before "real life" starts, and I want to have an epic adventure.

I have also been inspired by my lovely roomie and her buddy to blog about the adventure I hope to have. They have an awesome website called Wander and The Runaway, where they hope to build a community that supports their adventure and keeps them accountable to follow through. I want them to take me with them on their blogging/real adventure. I am kind of inviting myself. (hope that's okay) ;)

from weheartit

However, I am going to make my own adventure. Here is MY adventure bug defined:

I want to do something out of the state of Missouri that involved coffee, culture, and community. That may be one thing that lasts all summer or a bunch of small trips. I am going to put this blog into practice by actively seeking it out how coffee, culture, and community interact in the real world.

from weheartit

Okay, so here is my current brainstorm list. I physically cannot do all of the adventures on my dream list this summer, but I am going to explore the possibility of ALL of them. I am also open to any suggestions! :)

DREAM LIST:

1) Study abroad in Ecuador with Missouri State University.

2) Apply for an internship with World Vision in Chicago, IL.

3) Apply for an internship with Compassion International in Colorado Springs, CO.

4) Apply for an internship with Coffee Kids in Sante Fe, NM.

5) Work in a coffee farm with my wonderful friend in St. Louis.

6) Go to Spain to visit my Aunt (maybe with my lil sis).

7) Visit my friend's (let's call her ladybug) sister in South Korea.

8) Just move to a Spanish speaking country for no reason.

9) Work at an awesome coffee shop wherever I end up.

10) I want to leave room to DREAM.

from weheartit

There it is. 

Between now and then, I will explore these options, dream up more, and keep you updated. I would also like to visit my former neighbors in Pittsburgh, PA and possibly go with my church to Vancouver, Canada.

Okay, so there. My adventure bug is defined and out there. Hope you enjoy this adventure as much as I will. :) Please don't let me wimp out and give me lots of ideas!!! For now, that is all!

from weheartit

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AIDS Walk 2010

Through my Public Relations writing class, I have been writing with a partner, Kim Perry, for a local non-profit organization, AIDS Project of the Ozarks. They are such a great organization providing relief for HIV positive individuals in 29 counties through Southwest Missouri. Their services include medical help, financial aid, non-perishable item pantry, counseling, etc.

This Saturday, I participated in their event, AIDS Walk. It was so fun like one big family block party including a bounce house, face painting, and red hair extensions, of course.

Around 10, everyone gathered for the walk, which was phenomenal. It is hard to describe. I was all alone amongst this tight nit community. Watching all of these people with a deep connection come together as a community and walk together proudly was breathe taking. I was so honored to be a part of that.

I also ran into a Coffee Ethic regular, Casey Cox, who introduced me to much of the staff of APO. It was great to talk to him and learn about all of their needs as an organization and what they are doing in the Springfield community.

After the walk, there was the Dog Parade. Oh my goodness, there were so many dogs dressed up in the most adorable outfits. Here are just a few:

The experience as a whole was amazing. I walked, met new people, got a T-shirt, and some red extensions! I hope that next year I will be able organize a group to walk. 

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Crazy Combo Career

Today, in my Public Speaking II class, we were supposed to practice introducing speeches. Last week, we interviewed a classmate and then the classmate came up with a random topic for us to be speaking about. Well, who would have thought that my partner would have taken all my crazy different interests and rolled them into one.


I have to give credit it where it is due. Ashton May made me a Public Relations practitioner of a up and coming coffee roasting company that gave a portion of their profits to orphanages around the world. Wow, there it is. Coffee, culture, and community all rolled into one.


Now, I have to add on to Ashton's incredible idea. What if there was a company that did direct trade with the coffee farms of developing countries and money from selling their coffee was used to help the orphans in their community or other poverty in their community. What a beautiful relationship potential!


Okay, so I am just a college student right now, but this would be such a neat company to be apart of. Just like Public Relations combines all my random creative interests of writing, design, speaking, event planning, etc., this company would combine my love for coffee and passion for reaching out to the poverty in other countries, especially orphans.


If you are reading this blog and thinking, wow this is a GREAT idea, I think I am going to steal it from her and claim it as my own, AWESOME. Please just let me come do PR for you someday. We all need to think of creative ways to give back to the community: locally and globally.


Ideas can come in many forms so always pay attention...even in Speech class!


I hope you enjoy this journey with me exploring how coffee, culture, and community all relate to another. Pin It