Lessons Learned: City Year

After leaving City Year in October, I did what every good alum does: I reflected and became even more grateful for my time there. I will forever love the organization, everything it accomplishes and everything it will accomplish in the future. I learned to think without limits, that positivity is not naivety, to seek and accept support, to celebrate successes of all sizes and so much more.

City Year taught me to dream.

I used to think that dreaming was for people who lived in the suburbs. Because growing up, those were the only people I knew who dreamt. My only “dream” was to break free, do more. The idea of having a tangible dream, a vision, a plan, seemed like a sure way to fail; or to be laughed at.

I came to my service year well aware of how important it was for kids to have hope, to dream, but hypocritically, I had been settling for my reality up until the day I applied.

Through the support of my program manager and other teammates and mentors, I realized that higher education was a dream that I could make a reality—and succeed at.

City Year taught me to think without limits.

My team had the opportunity to completely develop the afterschool program for our kids. One day, as we were struggling to come up with ideas, our program manager came to help. He ran an activity called a “Blue Sky Brainstorm.” The idea: if we did not have to worry about a budget, if we had no time restrictions or any other restrictions, what would we do? Later that year, he led the same activity when I was trying to figure out what I would do with my ‘life after City Year’. 

Learning to think without limits was not easy. I had to drop my inhibitions, loose the security blanket of excuses I was living behind, and let my heart roam around the possibilities of my future.

City Year taught me to accept love.

I will never forget what one of my leaders told me the summer between my service years.  I had fallen very sick and spent a day in a hospital, after telling one of my leaders that I would be fine at the hospital alone, she said to me, “Accept love and life will be easier. Jeni, I’m not going anywhere. Let me give you the same love you give others.” Until that point I hadn’t realized the wall I put up, but from then on I tried  a little harder to accept support and love from others.

After two service years and two years on staff, I started my ‘life after City Year’. But the secret is- there is no ‘after’ City Year. City Year is a part of me, and for that I am forever grateful.

”Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined.” Henry David Thoreau