Students go local in response to election result

Three days after the November 5th election, with national politics veering in a direction many found demoralizing and disempowering, a group of YDS students and staff members came together to do something basic, life-affirming, and vitally needed by a segment of the local community.

They prepared dinner for area youth who are going through homelessness.

“Engaging in your community and building relationships is a practice against feeling powerless and overwhelmed,” said Ariana Hones ’25 M.Div. as she mixed cookie dough in the Berkeley Center kitchen, where the YDS group came together to prepare food for young people served by the local nonprofit Youth Continuum.  

It was Hones who thought of the post-election action and proposed it to the Office of Student Affairs—days before the election—knowing there would still be glaring needs in the community regardless of who won.

Vicki Flippin ’08 M.Div., Associate Dean for Student Affairs, immediately realized it was a good idea. “I had been asking students what would be helpful in the days following the election,” Flippin explained while peeling carrots. “When Ariana told us her idea to do something service-related, it made so much sense. With national politics and world events, you can feel so helpless at times. Doing something tangible like this is really helpful—not just to us but to the people who are going to enjoy this food tonight, and to the staff at the nonprofit whose workload is now a bit lighter today.”

Alison Cunningham ’84 M.Div., Director of Professional Formation at YDS and a longtime advocate for people experiencing homelessness, suggested Youth Continuum as the beneficiary of the service project—an organization for which she now volunteers as Board Chair. Kelly Park ’26 M.Div., who works for Berkeley’s hospitality team, organized the meal and ran the kitchen.

Food was also at the center of a student-support event earlier in the week. The morning after the election, Student Affairs laid out eggs, pancakes, bacon, sausage, and tofu scramble, encouraging students to have breakfast together and verbally process their response to the election.

When it comes to restoring a sense of agency, Hones said, “the individual level, the local level, the community level is a great place to start. How can we turn towards each other? How can we turn towards community?”

November 11, 2024