Amanda Chase Makes Giving Back Easier
Earlier this year, around Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which in addition to commemorating the achievements of Dr. King, is a national day of service, Strellis and Field’s very own Amanda Chase was looking for ways to give back to the Waterloo community. While looking for local service opportunities, Amanda pleasantly came to find out that Waterloo, IL is one of 280 cities that are members of the Cities of Service Coalition.
The Cities of Service Coalition aims to help city leaders engage citizens to solve public problems and build overall stronger communities. It was founded in 2009 by New York City Mayor Bloomberg to help city leaders improve their local communities by engaging the citizens for their ideas, feedback, and help. The Cities of Service Coalition also awards Leadership Grants and Volunteering Funds to member cities.
Amanda was exceedingly impressed that Waterloo stands alongside 280 other major cities (including Chicago, IL) in North America, South America, and Europe in the Cities of Service Coalition. However, she wanted to take the next step and make it easier for other Waterloo residents like herself to find meaningful service opportunities in one location. Therefore, Amanda reached out to the Mayor of Waterloo to create a website where people can easily see all of the available service opportunities in one place instead of individually searching across various organizations’ websites.
Mayor Tom Smith of Waterloo highly values service and loved Amanda’s idea as it embodied the very mission of the Cities of Service Coalition, citizens bringing forward ideas to town leadership to better the community for all. Amanda’s website idea not only would provide an interface for citizens to find service opportunities that spoke to them but could be used to track the service hours and types of work accomplished in Waterloo. This informative data, in turn, could then be used when applying for Cities of Service Coalition grants. Furthermore, citizen testimonials can be shared on the proposed site to inspire more citizen service work and demonstrate Waterloo’s service-driven nature.
In addition to the Waterloo service webpage, Amanda has taken her involvement a step further and proposed a Strellis and Field Award for Empathy. This award will share Strellis and Field’s common values of service and empathy with the local community. More information about the Strellis and Field Award for Empathy will be forthcoming in the near future. If you would like to learn more about the Cities of Service Coalition, you can visit their website here.
