Rivers Responds: Making Our Values Visible

“The academic piece was our number-one priority,” says Ava Archibald, director of diversity, equity, and inclusion. “But once that piece was solidified, we also wanted to be sure we were engaged and responsible, in a way that felt appropriate for Rivers.”

Even in the early days of the current crisis, Archibald, community engagement director Kit Cunningham, and Amy Enright, director of the Center for Community and Civic Engagement (CCCE), met with Head of School Ned Parsons and Assistant Head Jim Long to discuss how to respond in a way that bolstered the Rivers community and offered opportunities for social action, civic engagement, and education around the issues raised by the coronavirus outbreak.

Very quickly, an initiative called Rivers Responds came together. In the course of the discussions, it became clear that Rivers Responds would consist of three areas or pillars, all of them interlinked. Rivers Reaches Out focuses on providing information about volunteer opportunities; Rivers Strong disseminates information about community events and activities that strengthen our bonds and boost community morale; and Rivers Awareness and Action provides informational resources, from articles to webinars to workshops, that keep community members well-informed about the pandemic and its impacts.

Enright says her goal was to create a website that could act as a resource and clearinghouse for various types of information. “I wanted to do something the whole community could go to on a regular basis and find everything they would need to reconnect with Rivers and the larger community,” explains Enright. “I recognize that people have different needs and different capacities and levels of energy. I wanted one place where, if they were feeling like they just needed to do something fun, they can go to Rivers Strong and learn about the coffeehouse or the lip-sync contest. Or, if they’re feeling like they have extra energy, there are many places where you can help from home in ways that are easy and safe, in Rivers Reaches Out. And then there’s the third component, Rivers Awareness and Action, where, when you’re ready, you can go and read some articles about how COVID-19 is affecting American society.

“For me,” she continues, “I felt like all of these things belong on the same page, to remind people that our response really should include all of these. There’s a way in which the website makes our values visible, and it is entirely intentional that all three of these sections are in proximity.”

From the beginning, say its organizers, Rivers Responds was never intended solely as a resource for volunteer opportunities and community engagement, though it is that. “We always want to keep this in the context of ‘Why are we doing community engagement?’ and the context of building authentic relationships and understanding the issues facing society,” says Cunningham. “It’s not just about giving food to a food drive or making sandwiches for a shelter or writing thank-you notes. It’s about trying to think of the systems and structures that are in place and that have produced the inequities that have become so apparent during the pandemic.”

Once the ideological framework was in place, the site came together quickly. “It was a lot of work,” says Cunningham, “but it was fun and interesting.” Having worked with many nonprofits over the years, she was well positioned to reach out and see which organizations might need help. Some, she says, were unclear about how their needs might play out or were not in a position to offer opportunities that can be safely managed in the current climate. Some have guidelines in place that make it difficult to accept help or donations at the moment. Nevertheless, she was soon able to identify a number of volunteer options that could be done safely and that met important needs in the community.

All three areas of the site are updated frequently, as new activities and resources are added. The response so far has been strong, with hundreds of visits to the site and evidence of meaningful engagement by those visitors. The site’s creators hope that student groups such as sports teams or advisories might pursue Rivers Responds activities together, building community and esprit de corps.

Enright simply wants to be sure that every Rivers family knows that the school has created this rich resource. “My immediate goal is that they all know that there is a place to go, when they feel the need to reconnect with the community and when they feel they can do something to be part of the public response to this crisis.”

That said, she has a larger goal in mind, too. “In the long term, my hope is that we’re continuing to build a culture at Rivers that’s based on the idea that we’re all part of the solution,” Enright says, “especially during a crisis like this.”