AB Site Information

AB Site Information 25-26

Logistics for all sites:

  • Cost include transportation, housing, and grocery 
  • 2 site leaders
  • 10 participants
  • Volunteer trip will happen during the Spring break

Site 1: Welcoming Wanderers: Helping at the Border

Location: San Francisco

Overview & Purpose:

In the United States, the carceral system has historically targeted communities of color and underserved communities. The correctional environment, systemically flawed, has pushed entire marginalized communities to face high rates of unemployment, poor health conditions, and multi-generational barriers that prevent them from attaining proper resources to reintegrate into society. Our site plans to explore the intersectionalities of incarceration, ranging from its impact on healthcare, legal factors, housing, and immigration, to emphasize the importance of establishing a more sustainable and equitable carceral environment. We hope the service trip to this site will help former and current incarcerated individuals reintegrate and reestablish a sense of community.

Objectives: 

  • Learn about the many intersections that incarceration has ties to other service issues 
  • Engage with the systemic biases within the incarceration system and examine how our preconceived beliefs and media narratives influence the way we view incarceration
  •  Understand the ways in which legal processes and incarceration are intertwined and influence one another.
  •  Understand how carceral-focused service organizations in San Francisco work to minimize harm and support incarcerated individuals.

Potential Community Partners:

  • Community Assessment and Services Center
  • Insight Prison Project
  • The Last Mile

Site 2: Minds and Miles Apart: Mapping Literacy in Rural and Urban Communities

Location: Eureka, CA

Overview & Purpose:

This site will spend about 5 days in Eureka, CA learning about the disparity in educational resources between urban rural communities, and specifically how it impacts literacy rates in those regions.  Our pre-site work will be centered on exploring the different organizations supporting literacy and education equity in LA. By volunteering with similar organizations in Eureka, we will be able to compare the two environments in order to have a better understanding of educational funding and resource distribution within the US. In addition, we hope to explore the ripple effect of educational and economic policy on immigrant families and their students, analyzing the different ways that those influences affect the resulting labor force. Eureka’s population is quite rural geographically, but not so much that it lacks basic resources that would allow us to get involved in helping their community. Overall, we seek to broaden our perspectives and understand the different ways that communities are impacted by similar issues.

Objectives: 

  • Educate members on the large scale effects of low literacy rates
  • Engage with underfunded communities in order to provide site members 
  • Examine the challenges and benefits of rural vs. urban education systems in increasing literacy 
  • Serve with humility: source motivations not from savior complex but from understanding that literacy is a product of environments 
  • Apply newfound knowledge of literacy gaps and systems on a local, state, and national level to specific cities— Los Angeles, Eureka, and potentially site members’ hometowns  
  • Examine literacy gaps with cultural lenses and how literacy programs bridge immigrant households where English is the second language

Potential Community Partners:

  •  Humboldt Literacy Project 
  • Eureka County Library
  • Eureka NAACP

Site 3: Breaking through Bars: Exploring Incarceration, Education, and Advocacy

Location: Reno, Nevada

Overview & Purpose:

This site will be traveling to Reno, Nevada for one week to learn about and support efforts to increase youth mental health resources in rural communities through volunteering. We hope to volunteer with CPs focused on substance abuse prevention, peer-to-peer supports, and wellness programs within high schools as Nevada has one of the highest unmet mental healthcare needs among youth in the country. We also wish to understand how these programs can mitigate the disparity gap caused by the rural nature of much of the state. Through a combination of volunteer work and educational workshops, we aim to identify possible solutions to the needs in Nevada and how they can be applicable to the rural communities within California. 

Objectives: 

  • Understand the connection between rural environments and access to mental health resources
  • Promote the importance of mental health and substance abuse prevention resources especially for teenage populations
  • Understand and promote the importance of mental health
  • Learn ways to combat lack of familiarity of resources in rural communities
  • Examine how resource accessibility could be used to manage mental wellbeing 

Potential Community Partners:

  • NAMI of Western Nevada
  • The Beacon
  • The Children’s Cabinet – Reno