Digital Citizenship

It Takes a Village, an infant parent resource fair

In 2019, Bloomington North Rotary, of which I am a member, used Rotary International District Grant funds to put on an infant and parent resource fair called It Takes a Village (ITAV). This was intended to be a sustainable, annual event but Covid swept the legs out from underneath us.

In 2023, I used my position as Rotary Club President as well as an MSW Practicum Student with Monroe County United Ministries (MCUM) in order to revitalize this project, with the express goal of addressing access for low/non income families. This was done in order to address the unusually high infant and maternal mortality in Indiana.

ITAV occurred in April and serviced more than 200 people. The event used dollars raised through community sponsorship to secure a venue and purchase baby supplies to be given away for free, meant to entice our target audience to visit and experience vendors who represented community resources available for expecting parents, infants, and families.

A social media video from the event can be seen here:

https://www.facebook.com/506888968/videos/151719994506719/

Recently, I coordinated and lead a community development oriented zoom meeting with the Executive Director of MCUM Katie Broadfoot, and the current president of Bloomington North Rotary Bryan Hane, in order to get both organizations to commit to dedicating attention, volunteers and resources for this event for 2024. Both MCUM and the three Rotary clubs of Bloomington operate through annual budgets, and securing dollars and volunteers must be done well in advance.

Ensuring this meeting took place required the use of technology in several areas:

Text message was used to establish general interest and availability
Email and a brief survey crafted through Google Forms was used to determine the best day and time to meet
A dedicated Zoom meeting was scheduled via their website
Zoom invitation was sent via Google Calendar, identified as participants preferred schedule manager, ensuring that I was on their work calendars.
Day of access to highspeed internet in order to host the virtual meeting

Interestingly, with mere minutes to go before the launch of the meeting I realized that although I had intended my school zoom account to act as host for this meeting, I had actually organized it from my Rotary Club zoom account, which the Rotary President was initially intending to use to attend the meeting. This happened because when I set up the meeting I had just casually signed into zoom, and did not pay close attention to which account it automatically logged me into.

When considering the Digital Citizenship Survey I would have to say these kind of small sanfus happen often, and although they can be very anxiety inducing and promote a general sense of technical unreliability in me, I recognize that it does keep me proactive. In this instance I was at my computer, with my notes and required information in hand and ready to go, going through a basic tech check when I realized my error. I had enough time and know-how in order to quickly address the issue with Bryan in a way that did not leave me feeling overwhelmed or disrupt the start of the meeting. As well, Bryan’s ability to pivot without issue demonstrates his own comfortability with digital citizenship.

Both members of the meeting displayed strong digital citizenship, both in guiding me through getting this meeting on their work schedules, as well as participating day of. We began by establishing that we could see and hear each other, we had reliable internet access, and we developed a quick plan in the event that we became disconnected. Everyone was using their cameras appropriately, each well centered and without distracting backgrounds, and speaking clearly and in the elevated yet measured tone that many of us have come to perfect when trying to communicate through zoom.

Overall this meeting was a success, having secured commitments, established roles and set a date and time for the 2024 event.

Below find included a screen shot from the meet, and the 2023 event flyer.