Turn your passion for learning, into your passion for service

For much of our lives, we are focused on learning new tasks and stretching the boundaries of our understanding. From birth, well into retirement, learning is a lifelong pursuit. Driven by our curiosity and desire for self-betterment, learning is often its own reward.

My passion for challenging myself and learning about the world around me was fostered during my time at Drury. The professors and staff did a remarkable job of encouraging and shaping my own passions and interests by helping me explore the world around me. But when I left Drury, it wasn’t clear how that would continue.

The structures and people who supported me through my four years at DU weren’t immediately available. I had to learn to challenge myself, but it was by chance, that I discovered my passion for learning, and my curiosity about the world around me, was the start of my passion for service.

Photo via Paul Davis.

While learning about the world, I was always entranced by audacious ideas, and global problems. The idea of having an impact on an international scale was appealing, but the more I learned, the more I realized that all change, big and small, local or international, is made through the power of a relationship. This is something we see in our lives in little ways, such as the interest a professor takes in our growth, but it isn’t something we can always see on a large scale.

I can honestly say, that I didn’t realize the true power of relationships until I saw it up close at City Year. City Year is a non-profit education organization seeking to ensure that students in America’s highest need neighborhoods have the same opportunity to graduate high school as many of us received. We do that, through an evidence-based tutoring and mentoring program driven by the power of service. Young adults choose to give a year of service to help students fulfill their potential, and their most powerful tool is their relationship with that student.

Every day, our AmeriCorps members show up to school before their students, and greet them at the front door, welcoming them to school and creating a place where those students know they belong. Every day City Year AmeriCorps members build a relationship with a student. With every interaction, they build that human connection. Their human connection grows into trust and vulnerability. Trust and vulnerability grow into confidence and ambition.

This is when things get powerful. When a student is able to be ambitious about their future, and has the support of adults in their life, they start to harness their potential and achieve their goals.

We have all had this moment in our lives.

This is what I’ve recognized about my passion for learning. It isn’t something that is a fixed part of my personality or something I was born with. It is something that has been fostered and encouraged by the adults in my life, including all through my experience at Drury.

What I have always identified as a passion for learning is really the results of the service and passion of the adults in my life while I was growing up. My success was the fruits of their service.

Photo via Hollis McAllister of City Year.

After I left Drury, I have become more aware that not every child has that same opportunity and support that I received. This is what has transformed my passion for learning into my passion for service. I know that I can build and create opportunities for more children, and build a better community, through my passion and my service.

I want to issue that same challenge to you.

Are you willing to accept the challenge to transform your passion into service? There have been people in your life who have invested their passion and resources into your success, and many times we don’t even realize it. Giving a year of service to invest your passion into others may just be the opportunity you’ve been working towards.

You can learn more about how to accept this challenge to serve at www.cityyear.org, or reach out to me directly at pdavis1@cityyear.org.

Article contributed by Paul Davis.

Paul Davis ’07 is the executive director of City Year Tulsa. Paul and his wife Julie Bishop Davis ’07 are proud graduates of Drury living out their passion for service in Tulsa, Ok. You can follow Paul on Twitter at @pdidg or follow City Year Tulsa at @cityyeartulsa.