Group Member: Zac Johnson
Hi, my name is Zac Johnson and I am a sophomore here at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. I, like Lauren, have lived in Knoxville my whole life and I am glad to be part of Vols for Women's Worth raising funds for Hand Up for Women. My hobbies include weightlifting, hiking, church, and reading - all of which have something in common - each have various communities that I am invested in that keep me enjoying those hobbies.
In fact pictured above is me on top of Mount LeConte, with my friends cropped out, enjoying nature with company. I had a 6 hour shift later that day and given the hike is about 11 miles long without my friends I am not sure I could have made it back to work even close to on time (I may have been an hour late). Yet, this leads me to my main point of writing this blog today, examining the impact of community and how Hand Up for Women thrives off building a strong community around women who are struggling with a weak or even actively bad community.
Growing up in Knoxville I heard various iterations of "Birds of a feather flock together" particularly from my Mom. While I like to think that I am a completely autonomous individual with limited influence from the outside world. This is not the case.
(me and my Mom)
While I do think that phrases that imply no difference between one and ones friends are probably slightly too extreme, there are definitely many general truths behind this. For instance, my general morality (lying is almost always wrong, you should generally do your best, etc. ) is very similar to my church and family's morality. While these moral traits are common throughout society, if I had a poor or non-existent community I definitely would be more lax on such principles. Less seriously, my interests and hobbies could be entirely different without a community. Reading, hiking and weightlifting are all hobbies of my parents, and I would consider my immediate family to be a significant community. I have taken these hobbies and spread them to my immediate friend group who have often spread them to their other friend groups and thus communities are constantly shifting and morphing due to other communities.
Having healthy communities is very important too. I have been fortunate enough to be in very few poor communities and thus have had mostly good experiences with my hobbies. I played recreational sports a lot through elementary and middle school, and as a small kid who was fairly nerdy and often one of the worst on my teams, yet I still had very positive experiences.
(Me (far left) and my nerd friends)
Fast forward to today and I am very interested in outdoor/active hobbies due to me having communities that supported me even when I was bad at similar hobbies. Many people have not had such luck. Many women have not had such luck. This is why Hand Up for Women really feels a void that is needed. As much as I would like to think that I would end up where I am at now, without support and healthy communities at every stage of the way I definitely doubt it. This is why I think Hand Up for Women is a really cool non-profit, because those disadvantaged by being within bad communities can join a new one and relearn important concepts along the way. Overall, I think all the meals, classes, outreach, support, and friendliness that I have seen from Hand Up for Women really shows how they excel at replacing poor community, and uplift women in the process.
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