Welcome to our blog series, Plot Twist! Here, we'll be sharing the stories of people in the Words Alive community — stories of change, growth, and maybe a few surprising twists! We hope that through these stories, you'll get to know our community a little better and see the power of literacy come to life. This article is part of a special edition of this series as it spotlights our incredible volunteers who have been nominated for Words Alive’s 13th Annual Volunteer Appreciation Celebration!
Image of Andy Hoffman and volunteers with the UCSD Center for Student Involvement.
Fueled by his values, Andy Hoffman meaningfully builds and strengthens community through his volunteer service partnership with Words Alive. As the community engagement program manager of our Service Partner of the Year, University of California San Diego Center for Student Involvement (CSI), Andy coordinates with students and student organizations to create short-term service opportunities on campus and connecting UCSD’s student base of over 40,000 students to volunteer work.
Starting out in his position in March 2020, Andy struggled with figuring out how to engage students and local nonprofit partners for community service work at the onset of COVID-19. However, after searching for available service opportunities focusing on education, he stumbled upon Words Alive. He reached out to our community engagement manager, Robyn Grand and stayed connected from there—“I was just amazed at the creativity and kind of the drive to make sure that Words Alive was addressing the literacy gap, but also just how much they care about volunteers and how excited they were to work with our students.”
“I’ve learned that there’s so many different ways to work with Words Alive, and so just that flexibility and consistency that I’ve been able to have as a volunteer myself but also have been able to provide to students has been really invaluable.”
For CSI’s first project with Words Alive, UCSD student volunteers helped assemble over 1000 literacy kits. Cooperating with UCSD’s policies, Andy planned and worked with our staff to allow students to take boxes of materials back to their residence halls and assemble the kits asynchronously. Under Andy’s leadership, CSI has continued to implement literacy kit service projects this year as part of their Martin Luther King Jr. Week of Service and during spring break.
Reflecting on what his volunteering and role as someone who supports service opportunities meant to him, Andy shared, “If I can be engaged with the community, I’m basically thriving. So for me, it’s really, really, really awesome work and it feels like a privilege.” Andy recounted an impactful volunteering experience in which he attended a Words Alive book distribution. As a newer resident in San Diego at the time, he felt excited to meet fellow volunteers and witness theirs and the staff’s energy around literacy and service, explaining, “There was this social community building aspect that I strive for in my programs with my students, but to actually see it myself and be a part of that was just really awesome and just solidified that even as a volunteer, I love this and so I hope that I can share that with our students.”
One of Andy’s main takeaways from CSI’s partnership with Words Alive is that “every little thing counts” in coming up with various creative, accessible ways to get others involved in making an impact through service. Volunteering with Words Alive allowed him to learn and be positively challenged in his own role at UCSD to improve his own practices, make quick decisions, and respond to issues within the community in timely ways, especially given the ongoing need to address issues exacerbated in the pandemic. He pointed out that Words Alive inspired him not only by modeling this quick responsiveness but also by putting “a lot of joy into the work…that’s also something that is inspiring because this work can be hard, it can be challenging, and making things efficient and work well, and so anytime I interact with [Words Alive’s] staff, I feel like, wow, this is how I would want my potential team to run!”
Andy, thank you and the rest of CSI for your enthusiastic commitment to making a difference in the lives of your students and the Words Alive community. We are so grateful for your collaboration and partnership!
Book recommendation: Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness by Ingrid Fetell Lee
This post was created by Gabby Villadolid, Words Alive’s Storytelling Intern! Do you love writing and have an interest in helping Words Alive create this type of content? We'd love to have you on the team! Email to learn more.