Building Effective Community Partnerships

Abstract

Community Engagement H2O (CE-H2O) is a faith-based student organization that works to serve the community in the Columbus area. This student organization leverages building effective community partnerships with motivating and equipping university teams to advance the health and wellness of four key demographics in the Columbus area. These four communities are the immigrant and refugee population, those suffering in poverty, the orphan population and the widow population. CE-H2O has been effectively equipping university teams to lead community service projects in Columbus for more than five years and has created a model for sustainable, volunteer-based community engagement through a foundation in shared motivation with partner organizations. To create enduring and impactful community partnerships, a shared motivation is needed between the university teams and partnership organizations. For CE-H2O, this shared motivation comes from faith-based motivations for serving the community out of a genuine care for the health and well-being of those in need. CE-H2O is partnered with organizations that serve communities in Columbus through medical clinics, education, hunger relief and human-trafficking abolition. CE-H2O connects student lead university teams with these community partners to promote the health and wellness of these communities. Team development is paramount in maintaining these partnerships, and CE-H2O works diligently to foster growth and leadership in the university teams. Leadership preparation involves monthly CE-H2O meetings in which partnership events are organized; and leaders volunteer to liaison with partner organization to plan and prepare the student teams for the community engagement events. The leaders work to prepare university teams by connecting students to the community partners and lead teams through community engagement events. Student participants have multiple choices in serving with the community partners listed previously. This diversity enables the student to match their passions with the passions of a community partner, which promotes enduring relationships between the students and community partners. Team leaders hold briefings before and after each event to prepare teams for the event and inspire participants to become further involved in community engagement. This presentation is intended for organizations and administrators wanting to learn a sustainable model for creating community partnership with university teams. This presentation is also intended for students seeking community engagement partnerships. The individuals giving this presentation have expertise including more than five years of building effective community partnerships in Columbus, two years of being a student leader for university teams fostering these community relationships, and six months of direct internship experience with a community partner.AUTHOR AFFILIATION: Mike Malone, Pastor, CE-h2o, [email protected] (Corresponding Author); Megan Luthie, Student, CE-h2o; Sarah Stewart, Student, CE-h2o; Daniel Richie, Graduate Teaching Associate, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.Community Engagement h2o (CE-h2o) is a faith-based student organization that works to serve the community in the Columbus area. This student organization leverages building effective community partnerships with motivating and equipping university teams to advance the health and wellness of four key demographics in the Columbus area. These four communities are the immigrant and refugee population, those suffering in poverty, the orphan population, and the widow population. To create enduring and impactful community partnerships, a shared motivation is needed between the university teams and partnership organizations. This shared motivation creates enduring relationships between the university teams and community partners, and it promotes lifelong community engagement. This information is intended for students seeking community partnerships, as well as those wanting to learn a sustainable model for creating community partnership with university teams