Community Organizing: Applying Theory to Practice

Throughout the year, we have been learning methods to apply toward community practice. Our professor has heavily influenced the use of technology to aid us in community gathering and spreading our ideas to a larger audience. In a previous blog, I had mentioned how I had hesitated to start blogging and some of my class was resistant to blogging and creating a youtube video. But, we have learned the importance and have realized the advantage of using these tools toward reaching a larger audience. Like everything in life, it is the experience and application of knowledge that we learn the most from. After reviewing the past two months of my field experience, I realized that I have been applying the knowledge from my community class to the field.

This year, my field experience has been focused on the Regional Center’s population with autism. April was Autism Awareness month and my team had the task of creating special events for the different age groups of our consumers. After creating a list and scheduling multiple events, we had the task of “getting the word out” or creating a gathering to attend the events.

We were able to send letters out to our consumers, but we had wanted to spread the word throughout the community to reach a broader audience. The internet isn’t necessary to reach our local community, but we did decide to make use of all of our local media outlets. We researched several calendar postings available online, contacted the local newspapers, radio stations, and television station to request space to advertise for our events. Learning through class, I overcame my hesitation and was part of a Public Service Announcement that we recorded and distributed to all of our local radio stations to play throughout the month.

We successfully organized and produced gatherings at all of our events. By using our local media outlets as a tool, we were able to spread awareness and influence our people to attend. This experience in community organizing solidified the theories that we have been learning throughout the year.