wessam hazaymeh

During my freshman year, I heard about a program at VCU called “Alternative Spring Break” (ASB). Having the opportunity to serve a community beyond Richmond seemed like a no-brainer to me. I applied, ranked the service opportunities based on my interest and experience, then soon enough I received a notification of which service opportunity I was matched with. ASB is a program that sends VCU students and faculty on a week-long service trip. I was matched with the group going to Detroit, Michigan for Focus HOPE. Focus HOPE is a Detroit-based nonprofit that aims at fighting racism and poverty by providing education. This nonprofit sends meal boxes to those in need, offers a free day-care service and free food items to those in need who can go to the location and pick-up their food. 

During my time at ASB, I saw experienced the Leader-Member Exchange Theory play out. At the beginning, in December, when the group was having the first few meetings, we went through the “role-taking” phase. The site-leaders were assessing how we would collaborate and what roles the other members would take on, from meal nights to grocery shopping and more. Throughout the week, we worked together and began to understand how each of us works and moved into the “role-making” and “routinization stage.” By the time it was the day to drive to Detroit, everyone knew their roles and responsibilities which helped us during the “routinization” stage to best serve the community. As we collaborated with other universities helping at Focus HOPE for the week, we had to restart the “role-taking,” “role-making,” and “routinization” to be the most effective and efficient. 

This experience challenged me to push beyond what I thought I knew about leadership and community engagement. As a participant, I may have been in a “follower” role, but each of us played to our strengths as we navigated our time in Detroit and motivated each other to continue with our work no matter how tired we were. We knew we wanted to help the organization continue in its efforts towards achieving the mission. My artifact is a video I made from the week we spent in Detroit.

This video takes you through a small perspective of the Leader-Member Exchange theory as you see the group grow closer together and pick up on the roles our site leaders made and the role each participant played throughout the time during the ASB trip. This video also includes a short interview with the leaders of Focus HOPE, which further pulls in the perspective of the need for community engagement and how a group can work together to achieve a common goal. From this artifact, I had the opportunity to further reflect on my time as a participant and how my time was spent. This reflection was an opportunity to understand how I’ve grown as a leader and follower as well as bring insight into my time at Focus HOPE with my group so it can be shared with others.