Kylie Musolf is a senior at American University studying Philosophy and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She has worked at DASH as the development intern since January 2014.

It’s hard to pinpoint the first service project I ever completed. I grew up in rural Michigan with plenty of opportunities to do community service, and I was fortunate to grow up in a community that valued my participation. Doing community service opened my world up to unimaginable possibilities and passions and helped me gain some of the skills and experience I needed to move toward them.  Service certainly helped bring me to DASH: one of the recurring volunteer projects I did in secondary school was at my local domestic violence shelter.

While I can’t remember my first experience with community service, I can certainly remember my most recent. Last Saturday I showed up at DASH (a little late, as the red line was single tracking) with two wonderful young women of Alpha Phi Omega, the national service fraternity. Little did we know that Revolution: DASH was soon to be born. Five young residents showed up on Saturday morning to clean up their community by picking up litter. We suited up with our warm clothes, sanitary gloves, and trash bags and headed out. We picked up several bags worth of litter such as beverage containers, old newspapers, cigarette butts, and candy wrappers from the sidewalks and street gutters. We took breaks between blocks to play tag and talk about school and sports.

The streets were sparkling clean and we were exhausted! The five young residents, two members of Alpha Phi Omega and I, returned to the community room to eat pizza (generously provided by &pizza) and talk about the environment.  We talked about the different kinds of litter we picked up, statistics about trash and litter, and how litter impacts our clean water supply. We also talked about how much water we use daily—I think everyone was surprised to know that we use nearly 350 gallons a day! We discussed how doing something simple like picking up litter impacts the entire world around us in multiple and important ways.  From this Revolution: DASH was formed. The founding members determined this awesome name for their community service club, which will meet monthly to do service and talk about social justice.

While we haven’t yet decided on the mission of the club (stay tuned for next month), my goal for the club is to help our young residents: recognize their social efficacy, build and explore their passions, and lead purpose driven lives.

Do you want to get involved in the Revolution? If you ideas for our next project or would like to donate lunch, please contact me at: KMusolf@dashdc.wpengine.com