Everyone woke up this morning excited to learn about and participate in another volunteer organization a.k.a. not be chipping paint of a wall for the nth consecutive. Green light was a unique program that most of us had not heard of before in which they replace household’s lightbulbs with more energy efficient ones for free. They were just beginning to branch into home gardens to reduce the food miles of the produce consumed. Everyone got to meet the eccentric sweed, Andreas Hoffman, before getting to work on our volunteer shift. We split up into two groups one got to screw in light bulbs and the got to try to chop up Banana Trees with a shovel. When replacing light bulbs for homes on the list we experienced the uniqueness of Green Light. It was much more personal than other volunteer organizations. We wandered
through people’s homes as complete strangers trying to find all the light bulbs which is something that would make a lot of people uncomfortable. After 6 something hours of volunteering we ended the day with a campfire and s'mores where we had our final reflection. The topic of discussion was the meaning of active citizenship and how it helps us better understand systemic social issues plaguing society. Throughout the week through volunteering, reflections, and conversations with leaders of non-profits we learned concepts of what it means to be an active citizen. An active citizen learns to understand their privilege how they can use it to help others and try to prevent the negative effects of it. They look deeper into the issues that oppress the less fortunate of our society and make fixing these
societal issues a priority. These people are necessary to identify and solve issues in every country often fighting for years to budge public policy. We all left with a better understanding
and appreciation of this fight that goes on, often unnoticed throughout our country every day.
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