In a typical year, Bonner Leader students like me return to campus excited to get back to work with their community partners in Lewiston-Auburn. This year, due to COVID-19, we are coming up with creative ways to connect remotely with our partners. Speaking for myself, I am really interested in getting more involved with issues related to incarceration, so I will be working with College Guild, which is a program that provides educational experiences and a gateway to future educational opportunities for incarcerated students from across the country. I’ll also be volunteering with the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition, an organization committed to making ethical, positive, and humane changes in Maine’s prison system. I can’t wait to get started! 

My other Bonner friends are doing amazing things with their remote partnerships. For example:

Hannah McKenzie ‘21

“I’m working with the Immigrant Resource Center, continuing my English class on Zoom and also writing grants for their culturally-sensitive, gender-based violence prevention and survivor support programs. I’m also leading the French-speaking women’s conversation group I started through the Center for Wisdom’s Women, now also on Zoom.”

Dianna Georges ‘22

“I’m working remotely with two youth climate justice groups: Sunrise and Maine Youth for Climate Justice. We’re working on voter engagement and striking/protests after the election. I’m lucky because this work was already remote.”

Emma Block ‘22

“For my Bonner work during this module, I’m overseeing a mentor program that I started last year between Bates and Lewiston High School students. It will be completely remote this year, so I’m working out the logistics for that. I am also doing some work for the Second Look Project, an organization in DC that works on petitioning for resentencing for people who were given lengthy prison sentences, specifically through the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act and Compassionate Release cases.”

Ronan Goulden ‘22

“My Bonner work is definitely looking a bit different this time around! For this semester, I am going to continue the work I was doing with Marin Health and Human Services as Contact Tracer and Investigator. As a contact tracer, my job is three-fold: I first check in with those who are sick with COVID-19; I then find who they have potentially infected; and lastly, I work with them to create an isolation plan and help to connect them to resources that can help them to isolate and be compensated for doing so. I feel compelled to continue to do this work because California—and especially the low-income and BIPOC populations within it—continue to be heavily impacted by COVID-19. As a contact tracer, I have the power to make a difference in both the spread of the virus and in the lives of those I talk to as I am able to get them vital resources and be their advocate for when workplaces or other situations are putting them at unnecessary risk or are not paying what they should to their sick employees. Since Contact Tracing is all done online through a system called CalConnect, my Bonner work will definitely be a little different because I don’t get to have the same connection I normally have with community members. However, it is also exciting to be able to try something completely new and make an impact from afar.”

My fellow Bonners and I are excited to get back into the community in person. In the meantime, we’re adapting and developing new strategies to create closer relationships with our partners and to collaborate with them in addressing community needs.

– Genesis Paulino ’21