{"id":8362,"date":"2022-04-21T18:51:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-21T18:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/wordpress\/lavie\/?p=8362"},"modified":"2022-04-21T18:51:00","modified_gmt":"2022-04-21T18:51:00","slug":"volunteer-spotlight-emily-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/2022\/04\/21\/volunteer-spotlight-emily-long\/","title":{"rendered":"Volunteer Spotlight: Emily Long"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Isaac Fox \u201824, guest writer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a senior in college, Emily Long stood in her elementary school cafeteria, watching the people who taught her childhood self English and math sprint from table to table. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They formed make-believe families and exchanged make-believe money, but there was nothing make-believe about their frustration and franticness. They were struggling through a poverty simulator, and she was leading it. For the moment, she taught, and they learned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of funny,\u201d she said. \u201cBut then you\u2019re like, this was actually hard, and if this was not a single 45-minute-or-whatever period of my life\u2026. And some of them were like, \u2018Yes, I\u2019m a teacher\u2014a teacher<\/em>, within this district, who lives on the borderline of poverty, and this is just a lot.\u2019 So I hope there were a lot of realizations like what I had, that this is a reality for people who probably live next door or in my neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emily\u2019s own realization came while volunteering in the healthcare field. Working with Habitat for Humanity and the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center in Lebanon, she has encountered people with life stories completely different from her own, even in areas barely outside her hometown. Some face medical \u201cdeath sentences\u201d because of factors like class or immigration status. One woman who Emily met had struggled with addiction and homelessness her whole life and was in hospice at age 50.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talking to people in such desperate circumstances is never easy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll test you,\u201d Emily said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s emotionally difficult work, but it\u2019s also a cultural shift that can force anyone to confront their own ideas. Emily believes that everyone deserves healthcare, no matter why they need it. In some roles, she\u2019s met people who society blames for their problems, and she\u2019s had to remind herself of her values. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that drug addiction is a mental health condition, and I don\u2019t think that it\u2019s a personal failing,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it is one of those moments where you say, \u2018Okay, in this room somebody has cancer, and in this room somebody has drug addiction, and they feel like they should be two different things. And you have to reaffirm that, \u2018Listen, I think that everyone gets healthcare.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Isaac Fox \u201824, guest writer As a senior in college, Emily Long stood in her elementary school cafeteria, watching the people who taught her childhood self English and math sprint from table to table. […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8351,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-campus-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}