Guest Opinion: Social action -- what it is and how I do it Guest Opinion: Social action -- what it is and how I do it (March 31, 2004)

by Eve Agiewich

The term "social action" is one of those phrases that seems to be defined differently by each person who uses it. For me, it refers to whatever I do to improve the lives of people within my community.

We are all familiar with the most common types of social action: donating money or goods, volunteering for school-based, social-service or medical projects, political parties or candidates.

Frequently, such projects are done either through faith-based groups or service clubs. In Palo Alto many people also take other kinds of social action: They serve on government boards and commissions, write letters to the editor or form working groups to tackle specific goals.

Ours is an active, vibrant community, with a highly involved citizenry.

I consider myself incredibly lucky to have found my way here, and to be able to call myself a Palo Altan. I have found innumerable ways to exercise my penchant for social activism, more -- really than I can possibly accomplish in one lifetime.

I was raised in a household that believed, implicitly, in the worth of every human being, in equality, and in the right of every person to be treated with dignity and fairness. My parents were strong supporters of labor, the First Amendment, civil liberties, and peace (in no specific order). Social action was in the water I drank.

I learned how to march in high school by going to Washington twice in support of integrated schools. These were marches led by the late Bayard Rustin, who went on to help organize the famous March on Washington at which Martin Luther King made is famous "I Have a Dream" speech. (I managed to miss that one.)

During college, I participated in a freedom ride, and, as a young adult, I counseled conscientious objectors and marched again on Washington in protest of the Vietnam War. I was a county organizer for George McGovern in upstate New York during that doomed campaign. And, when I went to law school I seriously considered becoming a First Amendment scholar.

I settled for concentrating on landlord-tenant and fair-housing law, areas that were guaranteed to keep me in the lower economic sector of the profession. But, the practice satisfied my inherent, perhaps genetic, need to help others.

My interest in housing led to my appointment in 1997 to the Palo Alto's Human Relations Commission, where I continue to serve. And, when I closed my law practice, it also drew me to take a position at Clara-Mateo Alliance (CMA), a non-profit that operates homeless shelters and transitional housing programs in Menlo Park, and the Elsa Segovia Center, a drop-in center for homeless women and families. Clara-Mateo will provide the services for women and families at The Opportunity Center of the Mid-Peninsula when it opens in 2005 or 2006.

It is not coincidental that I am also on the board of the Community Working Group, the agency responsible for building the Opportunity Center.

The Opportunity Center is a great example of a really successful social action project. Briefly, a group of concerned citizens deplored the lack of services for the un-housed members of our community, and recognized the need for an indoor drop-in center to replace the outdoor "facility" used by the Urban Ministry, located behind the Red Cross building. A faith-based group, with the support of other public-minded citizens, formed a non-profit organization, the Community Working Group. Its sole mission was to establish such a center.

Beginning roughly with the floods in early 1998, the group coalesced behind the project, countered whatever public opposition arose and garnered public support., It found the land, found the money to purchase the land, and has raised almost all the money needed to build the building, and establish an endowment to ensure continued services.

Our community has many unmet needs. These will only continue to grow as state, county and city budgets continue to shrink. If you want to get involved in social action, you need only look around you, talk to your kids and your neighbors, watch local TV, read the newspaper -- particularly the letters to the editor -- or see what members of your faith congregation are doing.

If you're really stuck, contact me and I'll be glad to steer you to one of my favorite projects.

Eve Agiewich is director of community relations and legal counsel for the Clara-Mateo Alliance, Inc., and is a member of the Palo Alto Human Relations Commission. She can be e-mailed at eagiewich@clara-mateo.org.

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