Identifying a Community Need

Before you begin your search for a Community Need that you can be invested in -- let me spend a moment defining "Community Need." A community need is a problem that affects many people in the community in a similiar way. A community need is never caused by one person; these needs always have a complicated history and are rooted in multiple institutions and events. Different groups in the community are affected in different ways, but what makes it a *community* need -- is that many people are troubled and almost everyone wants to solve it (though in different ways).

I recommend that you start this process by brainstorming. What are the community needs that you already know about from your own hometown? They can be needs that exist at the neighborhood level, the city level, the county level. These issues could be related to some community institutions, community businesses or just residents. These issues might affect only older people, younger people, married people or handicapped people.

Often the problems that are most significant in our own lives -- are rooted in a much larger systemic problem that might not be obvious at first, but may actually be a problem that could be addressed in the community.

I'd recommend that you brainstorm a list of problems that you can think of without doing any research first.

Next, I'd recommend that you try to think about how other people, unlike you, who also live in your community, might answer the question: What are the biggest problems that people in the community face? What are the biggest problems that the community faces?

After you've thought hard about your own experiences and those experiences that you're aware of -- I suggest you look to some other sources. There are institutions that already exist in this community (the greater Canton area & Stark County) who only exist to address existing problems. Many of them are non-profit institutions; a few more are government branches. I suggest that you browse the links below and expand your list of problems by thinking about the work that these organizations do.

Stark County Foundation

Stark County Family Council

City Data on Canton

Census Data on Stark County

After you've thought hard about these agencies and their work, you may already have enough options. If you don't, I suggest that you read the paper. The Canton Repository and the Akron Beacon Journal (maybe the Cleveland Plain Dealer) are good; I might recommend a national paper or two, too (The New York Times, The Washington Post, etc...). Unfortunately much of the newspaper's pages these days are NOT devoted to community needs, but are, instead, devoted to surprising local events.
Make sure you focus your reading on problems that fit into the definition above.

Now that you've brainstormed a huge list of potential problems -- how do you choose the right one for you to address?

I suggest that you identify the top three-five problems that you're most interested in and spend an hour or two researching them on the web. How have other communities dealt with this problem? What does this problem look like in this community? What information and resources will aid your preparation for this presentation? Look over the assignment again before you make your choice -- which option best fits:

your gifts + the assignments demands + your classmates' interests + this community's needs.

Once you've settled on a Community Issue, send me an email proposal and if I approve it, I'll add it to the list of approved topics here on the blog. If I have some concerns, I'll email you.

When you send me your issue-proposal-email, you should clearly articulate the problem in a full sentence. In a second sentence, you should explain *why* this is a problem, even if it seems too obvious to you, I want you to explain the "harms" and the "impact" of this problem.

That's it. Just two sentences. I'll only accept these proposals through email. While these proposals are not graded, the longer you wait to turn one in, the more difficult it will be for you to find a problem. If you present a problem at the fair that I have not approved in advance, you risk the possibility that it will not meet the criteria I stated at the top of this post. If you present a problem that does not meet these criteria, your presentation will automatically have 20% deducted from the grade you earn.

Speech Giving Groups

Mitchell Hall 207:

Ben
Tim
Jason
Cady
Amy



Mitchell Hall 209:

Diedre
Sarah
Colleen
Allison
Kelsey


Mitchell Hall 203:

Jordan
Andrew
Tommy
Jenny
Chuck


Mitchell Hall 103:

Lepear
Juho
Will
Hunter
Travis


Mitchell Hall 107:

Jared
Felipe
Conner
Phil
Michael

Why Focus on Community Needs?

One of the purposes of this speech assignment (and the next one) is to help prepare you to be kind of Malone graduate (and the kind of person) who is prepared to "serve the church, community & world."

Some classical education treated the study of rhetoric (or persuasion) as the final stage in preparing a student -- after they had grown in wisdom, it would be essential that they be schooled in entering the "public sphere" in a way that would be effective and helpful. Other classical educators included rhetorical (or persuasive) training right from the beginning and all the way through their education. They believed that if students understood how much they owed the audiences they spoke to, they would be motivated to learn well AND eventually affect the community in important ways. Regardless of whether they thought that public speaking was "frosting on the cake" or "the recipe itself" -- they agreed that a concern for the good of the community was essential to one's education and implicit within persuasive training.

We're up to the same thing in this class. I want you to start to take responsibility for the community that surrounds you. The ability to persuade people carries with it the great burden of being responsible for the welfare of those you persuade.

Through these two speeches, I want you to develop a deeper understanding of some of the problems in the community surrounding you. I also want you to start to think about the various solutions that might respond to those problems. One of the challenges in speaking about community problems is that there are so MANY things you could talk about that choosing just the right things is hard work. Another challenge? In a group the size of our class (or any other group) people disagree about causes and ideals. Talking about the problem in a way that is inclusive and invitational becomes a difficult logistical task.

No matter what kind of public communication you do later on though, through your neighborhood, your school district, your local government, in media, through your job, writing on the internet -- one of the important (yet often invisible) responsiblities that will weight that communication -- is your responsibility for your community. I hope these assignments start to help you think about that responsibility and that relationship in concrete and ultimately helpful ways.