Social Justice and Advocacy with Matthew Dennison

One of my favorite things about CCM is our Social Justice and Advocacy Team… now I may be a bit bias in that as I am the Social Justice and Advocacy Coordinator. I mean, who can blame me, I work with a great team: Kara Callahan (our Social Justice and Advocacy Assistant),
and Nelson Mendoza (our Soup Kitchen Coordinator).

Our team is committed to outreach for the marginalized in our community and for educating students on social justice issues at DePaul, Chicago, US, and around the world. Now more than ever it’s important that our team works towards fighting injustice. I couldn’t be more honored to work for such a great team in the pursuit of this goal. In every conversation and interaction I have with my partners I can see just how much they care about their work, and it only makes me want to work harder myself. We all mourn together at the tragic deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and all those hurt because of systemic racism and police brutality. We all mourn for the lives of the undocumented migrants at the border who are separated from their families and have suffered inhuman treatment. We all mourn for those who have lost loved ones due to COVID-19.

Our team here at CCM understands we can’t cover all the issues that need to be addressed, but still, we strive to inform and help our community grow and stay safe during this time. So far for this fall quarter, we have attended several information sessions and presentations, ranging from climate injustice and environmental racism to the importance that every child receives an education. We have also planned and are running three events throughout this quarter as well, talking about voting, food insecurity in Chicago, and climate change and its effect on the marginalized. Finally, we have been posting on our CCM social justice and advocacy Facebook group page articles and information about social justice issues (if any of the above intrigues you follow us at CCM: Social Justice and Advocacy). We haven’t been as active in our soup kitchen this year due to COVID, but Nelson has still done a fantastic job working on it, keeping it up and running three
days a week. I hope after hearing all of this that you all will maybe show up to one of our events or read one of our posts on Facebook, or maybe even volunteer at the soup kitchen.

Regardless stay safe, and enjoy the rest of the fall weather we have before winter sets in.

Matthew Dennison
Kara Callahan
Nelson Mendoza