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Amanda Schoep
ENC 3331
Professor Stewart
24 November 2015
Civic Engagement Reflection- Home for the Holidays
For my civic engagement campaign, I chose to focus on the issue of homeless children
and their families who would be unable to experience holiday traditions in a home setting. The
idea to focus on this issue came about when I reflected on last Christmas. After my family and I
had our Christmas Eve dinner we decided to distribute the abundance of ham, sweet potato
casserole, Hawaiian rolls, steamed vegetables, etc. amongst the homeless individuals of
downtown Kansas City. The spur of the moment holiday kindness turned into a huge awakening
and a reality check; there were an unexpectedly overwhelming amount of homeless who were
alone (in freezing degree weather I might add) on Christmas Eve. The smile and joy that came
across their faces when we gave them our food was so genuine and grateful. This event inspired
me to design my own civic engagement campaign that directly addresses the children and their
families who are without homes on holidays. I decided to share my story, a narrative, because it
serves as form of symbolic action; it functions as the formation of memory as well as the
creation of a sense of cultural identity and community (119, Palczewski, Ice, and Fritch).
In order to make this campaign effective I had to use the tactic of drawing on two main
audiences- the homeless children/families and the volunteers. According to Palczewski, Ice, and
Fritch, audience is the element that distinguishes rhetoric from purely expressive forms of

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communication (179). Both audiences are very different yet both very essential in making this
program run. The rhetorical audience is who I am trying to appeal to; it is the audience that
consists of those persons who are capable of being influenced (179, Palczewski, Ice, and
Fritch). I appealed to the volunteers in a number of different materials. I made an excerpt that
would go in a church bulletin; it briefly described Home for the Holidays and gave contact
information for people who want to find more out about the program. I am appealing to the
church population, and I am hoping that the abundance of volunteers will come from the
churches in the Central Florida Area. I decided to target churches because the iDignity program
(which dealt with homelessness as well) effectively used churches to benefit many aspects of
their campaign. I paired with the Orlando dioceses so I could have easy access an abundance of
churches; I featured their logo in the church bulletin excerpt. In addition to churches I targeted
people who would be at family oriented events in the Central Florida area such as the Lake Eola
Farmers Market, the Winter Park Art Show, Holiday Festivals, etc. I would be tabling at events
such as those I listed above. The materials I made for tabling consist of a sign-up sheet and a
flyer. The sign-up sheet has a place for a name, phone number, and email so my team can
follow up and give more information to the potential volunteers about the program. The flyer is
similar to the church bulletin; it is straight forward and has additionally contact information for
people who want to learn more about the program. In order to appeal to the other audience, the
children/ families, I first had to write an initial email contacting the Childrens Home Society of
Central Florida. Contacting this organization is the most effective way to not only find
children/families willing to participate, but it is the most effective way to keep in contact with the
homeless individuals without a permanent address and no definite source of communication (cell
phone, email address, etc.). I briefly explained in the email what Home for the Holidays; I

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mentioned how it essentially pairs homeless children and families with volunteers in order to
give the children the experiencethey deserve.
Aside from producing materials in order to enhance the effectiveness of my campaign by
appealing to audiences, I decided to focus on power and who I would partner with to achieve my
goals in the civic engagement campaign. Power is essential because it delimits the agency of
rhetors (23, Palczewski, Ice, and Fritch). I decided to partner with the Childrens Home Society
of Central Florida. It would be the most beneficial to partner with them because besides
providing one of the two audiences Im targeting, they also have a large volunteer base I can
draw volunteers from. Also, pending that they accept the proposal from the initial
correspondence email, I would want to partner with them because they have made connections
with many other organizations in the Central Florida Area. They have connections with local
foster homes as well. Next I decided to partner with iDignity for similar reasons; they already
have a solid volunteer base established in addition to contact with an abundance of local
churches in the Orlando area. As mentioned previously, I also partnered with the arch diocese of
Orlando so I easily contact over 100 churches. I put the logo of the three partners in the bulletin
excerpt and in the flyer.
Overall, the rhetorical devices I have used to target the specified audiences and partner
with organizations that already have a strong volunteer base will make this campaign the most
successful. The power in partnering with these organizations will be great, especially because
they are well established and this campaign is just starting out. Once the campaign gains more
publicity and credibility by the number of years it has been active, partnering with other large
organizations will not be as necessary. At some point in the future, it would be ideal if Home for
the Holidays were to partner with a small organization just beginning; I could give back the

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assistance that the larger organizations are giving to me now. There are still some aspects of this
campaign that can be improved upon, especially the small details (such as the full application
process, the website I mentioned in the materials I created, etc.) since this was such a big
program.

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Work Cited
Palczewski, Catherine Helen., Richard Ice, and John Fritch. Rhetoric in Civic Life. State
College, PA: Strata Pub., 2012. Print.