CARP USA Newsletter: Challenges and Opportunities — Jinil Fleischman

It’s been about a year since we’ve begun lockdowns. The challenges and opportunities brought on by the pandemic have changed how CARP does things but never changed our mission: to empower students as principled leaders on campus and in their community. As the vaccine rolls out and the future of campuses begins to become more clear, let’s take a look back on how we’ve done.

Our chapters, employing both innovation and a deep heart for CARP, kept going and moved everything online: CARP Talks, workshops, meetings, events. Even meeting new students happened entirely online, with our students reaching out to more of their classmates and friends.

Even new chapters like CARP DMV started strong right out of the gate and kept up their momentum, starting programs like Thrive, G&T Talks, and monthly workshops.

Chapters did service projects! They didn’t just stay home to protect their families and communities, they also found ways to serve and touch people who were at home.

Collaboration among chapters increased. With everything online, chapters invited other chapters to join in on their events, and smaller chapters had the opportunity to interface with larger ones, making one large national CARP community. Just this month, CARP Las Vegas and CARP Bay Area combined their activities so both hubs attend their events, increasing their participation to around 80.

In spite of the challenges, the limited in person contact, our chapters have done amazingly well. We’re so grateful to them making the switch, being creative, and always #livingforthesakeofothers, especially now.

They’ve got more to come. Check out some of their highlights this past month:

Fourth HyoJeong Conference Appeals to Christians

For the fourth HyoJeong Conference on February 26, CARP teamed up with the Youth Christian Leadership Conference (YCLC) to host their fourth conference. Keeping to the theme of reuniting the Korean Peninsula, they invited Christian leaders and pastors to speak on the role of Christians and God believing people to support the reunification efforts.

Some of the A-list guests were Bishop Noel Jones of City of Refuge Church, Deitrick Haddon of Hill City Church in Los Angeles, and Elder Edwin Perry of City of Refuge Church.

Watch the full conference here!

MLK and the Heart of Service: 40 Days Recap

CARP Bay Area concluded a successful MLK 40 Days of Service from January 18 to February 27, 2021.

During the 40 Days of Service, the mural team and volunteers from various organizations would meet once a week to help paint the welcome section of the mural stating: “Welcome to Sobrante Park.” It was an incredible feeling seeing the face of true joy and gratitude from the community as we were painting.