Above: 30th Class Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellow Kathryn Tzivanis.
I believe that achieving positive change in a community requires centering love in our advocacy efforts. bell hooks in “All About Love: New Visions” explores love as a foundation for justice, imploring us to use love as a practice of care, respect, and connection. I found that the word “love” wasn’t commonly used in advocacy spaces; in fact I would say some people actually shy away from it. This fellowship experience was a great opportunity for me to interrogate the power of love and advocacy when they work hand in hand.
As advocates working to dismantle systems of oppression, we are driven to interrogate our motivations or our “why.” In my early years of advocacy, I found myself driven by some combination of sympathy and anger without a clear reason as to why I was doing this work other than the gut feeling of knowing that other human beings were suffering, and that in and of itself was unacceptable. Personally, I found it more challenging to engage with the work without a clear purpose. But reading more from hooks and speaking with other long-time advocates I was taught that sympathy and anger, although good motivators to join movements for justice, may not be sustainable emotions/motivation for long-term action. Thus I began to shift my focus to love.
Communal love requires a recognition of the interconnectedness of people. If we begin to view people as parts of our community and not just strangers or opponents, it will naturally deepen our empathy for them. Empathy being the baseline for meaningful connections and collective support. Love prompts you to actively listen to diverse perspectives, amplify marginalized voices, and stand in solidarity with your community. Communal love shifts away from the societal norm of individualism and begins to promote a culture of collective care. Along with understanding the communal aspect of humanity, hooks also encourages us as advocates working to use a love-centered advocacy framework to commit to understanding systemic issues that are perpetuating the harm against those in our community. We need to understand the root causes of these systems and structures of oppression that perpetuate inequalities based on race, gender, socio-economic, and other factors in order to dismantle them.
There isn’t a better example of an organization that embodies communal love than the University of California – Irvine Basic Needs Center with their dedicated efforts to support students facing food insecurity, housing instability, and financial challenges. I was lucky enough to be placed at the Basic Needs Center for the first half of the fellowship as my field placement. My project focused on expanding CalFresh student eligibility on campus and increasing the number of eligible students applying for benefits with permanent academic and professional program exemptions. During my time there I was able to help get over 30 academic programs approved by the county for CalFresh student eligibility. Each newly approved program improved access to CalFresh, ultimately chipping away at college hunger and strengthening the UCI community.
As an advocate new to CalFresh, my supervisor and coworkers continuously poured into me providing me with the equity-informed knowledge and support I needed to tackle my project and ultimately become a more well-rounded advocate. More specifically, my supervisor, Sandra Cuyuch, played a significant role in my development as a change maker. She showed me how to lead with love at the center of my actions and language, never wavering from her values. The Basic Needs Center as a whole set a standard for mutual care among staff, enabling us to better support student needs. I’ve never felt more empowered to do my best work than at the Basic Needs Center because of how well they nurtured personal and professional development and created a space where collaboration truly thrives.
Not only did I feel supported as a staff member but the Basic Needs Center has intentionally cultivated an environment where students feel valued and supported as well. The Basic Needs Center prioritizes building meaningful connections with students, exemplified by everything from the welcoming smiles from social workers to the comfortable space itself. By embodying communal love in their daily work, the Basic Needs Center serves as a beacon of compassion and solidarity, consistently affirming students’ value and dignity in the process.
My experience at the Basic Needs Center has affirmed that centering love in advocacy is not just a philosophy but a powerful force for creating inclusive communities and driving lasting social change.