Developing a Sense of Community Through Zoom

Community to me has always been more than just a physical space. Through social media and forming bonds through sports, interests, and traveling, your community and network can be as large as you can imagine. With the use of the internet and social media, these connections can be limitless. Through my experience with Student PIRGs, I proved this idea once again. I have formed a community with my team but also with other Student PIRG activists. However, despite already knowing that communities are not bound by physical limits, I did learn just how vast they can be. By connecting with students all over the United States, you really come to realize how large of a network and how life-changing the internet is. All of us had to coordinate together to accommodate for different lifestyles, time zones, and other summer events to join zoom calls to craft a cohesive strategy for activism. All of these factors made me realize just how vast communities can be. I also learned more about the formation of communities. With a common interest, a community can form extremely easily, and I observed that with Student PIRGs. A lot of people in my team or the fellowship had some relationship with PIRG but others did not and learned about the internship training through advertisements. But all of us were brought together in order to be student activists wanting to see change in the world.

Personally, I feel as if I expanded my community and started a new one. As a PIRG fellow, I expanded my community in leadership by meeting great leaders from all over the nation. I have already been involved in PIRG leadership so I have already been a part of the community but I was able to expand it by meeting new friendly faces of great student leaders who are associated with PIRG but I just haven’t met yet. I also started a new community with my own team. The RAWA team. This was my team for the summer. They all were involved with helping pass the Restoring America’s Wildlife Act through Congress. We were all bonded together through our passion to create change and the common goal of restoring America’s wildlife. These students were all dedicated and spread across the entire US. I worked with them throughout the Summer and was able to learn a great deal about them. This team serves as a more personal community in addition to the PIRG community.