I participated in the Johnson Service Corps in 2018-2019. Immediately after completing JSC, I started grad school for my Masters in Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Little did I know that nine months later, with all of my classes online, I would be social distancing and apart from many of my standard sources of community.
With that said, it is the connections that I created during my time with JSC that have sustained me the most during these pandemic times and have helped me stay connected to my community in North Carolina. These ties range from online services at the Church of the Advocate, getting to see my old supervisor at the Compass Center on a Zoom call, or becoming interested in an initiative at Chapel Hill’s Northside Neighborhood because of how I was first introduced to them via JSC.
These pandemic times have renewed my commitment to the Chapel Hill community and I’m grateful that JSC was the foundation upon which I built my community here.