Here are a few of our favorite Big Ideas + Other Cool Stuff from Week 1 of Bonnie Nelson and Travis Hellstrom’s 4-week course Everyday Service.
Already enrolled? Download the class here.
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The Context
Bonnie is currently a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mongolia and also an AmeriCorps alumni. She obtained her Masters in Educational Leadership while also working as a service learning liaison, where she helped coordinate service partnerships between nonprofit and campus organizations, faculty and students.
Travis just finished three years of Peace Corps service in Mongolia. He is the author of the Unofficial Peace Corps Volunteer Handbook, Enough and creator of Peace Corps 101. After completing his Peace Corps service, Travis started a social movement called Advance Humanity, where he writes weekly articles for everyday humanitarians.
Together they developed Everyday Service as a way to bring together amazing people around the world who are making a difference and living unique and inspiring lives as everyday humanitarians.
Here are three of the Big Ideas shared during class...
Big Idea #1: What Inspires Us
Anyone dedicated to helping others found inspiration somewhere along the line. Some of us always felt the need to help others and intentionally found the inspiration we needed. Travis realized how helping others truly felt when he joined the Safety Patrol in elementary school. Inspiration to help others can find us anywhere and at any time in life. We need to be ready to go where it leads us.
Big Idea #2: Being an Everyday Humanitarian
In class we were asked to define what being an everyday humanitarian meant to us. We agreed that it isn't an hour-a-day commitment, it is a way of living all the time. It means seeing opportunities to help in small and large ways everyday, in your town and across the world. You may never make another decision that entails the commitment of being a humanitarian, everyday.
Big Idea #3: We Have So Many Choices
When we decide we want to commit to everyday service, we then have many choices to make. Do we want to help locally or globally? Should we help supply people with items (such as medical supplies, clean drinking water, or shoes) or do we want to help their personal lives (with English lessons or meditation classes)? There are millions of ways to help people all over the world.
When we decide to be Everyday Humanitarians, we can find what inspires us and go where that inspiration takes us.
Other Cool Stuff
Awesome Bonus! This class also supports your favorite causes! Proceeds from Everyday Service go to national and international service programs of your choice through the Everyday Service Fund! Now that you are part of the class, you can choose what causes you want your money to go to!
Everyday Service Interviews hosted by en*theos radio. Every week we will be featuring outstanding professors from our class with in-depth interviews. Check out a sneak peek of a bunch of our interviews here: everydayservice.org/interviews.
This week we sit down with Orly Wahba, founder of Life Vest Inside and director of the wonderful film included below called Kindness Boomerang. We hope you enjoy it!
We hope you enjoyed our first week of class and we're excited to see you in Week 2!
-The en*theos Team
