The Up To Us competition is an exciting opportunity for Luther College students to take part in something they care about. Our core team members come from different backgrounds and have different interests but the campaign is one thing that unites us all and the different interests serve to create diversity within the team. When we first heard about the competition, we were excited about the opportunity it presented to us to reach out to fellow students and get them involved in an issue that affected them one way or another. The national debt is something that affects everybody in some way and we believe it is important for the students and everyone else to be well informed about it and from that information decide whether they think it’s a good thing or a bad thing. We believe that it is everyone’s duty to educate their neighbor on daily issues we should all care about because if not us, then who will do it? It is with this thought in mind that we decided to do our part and get everyone talking, acting, or merely just knowing, for it is better for one to be informed than to be ignorant. What they do with the knowledge is out of our hands but we know what we will do with ours- spread it and hope it grows into something big.
Our journey in preparing for this campaign so far has been one with many challenges, among which was finding a time that worked for everyone for the update meetings (we eventually found time periods that worked for all the team members to schedule fixed weekly meetings), finding ways to incentivise campus groups to sponsor our campaign and also finding incentives for people to volunteer to help with the campaign.
In reflecting on the Net Impact Conference, Luther College Team Leader Laura Mesadieu says “I feel deeply honored to have been invited to the Net impact Conference. Meeting the other Team Leaders made me realize that Up To Us is not just a competition. It is an opportunity for everyone especially students to express their thoughts and learn about a topic that really matters. And that makes me feel very proud that Luther is one of those schools leading this thought-provoking project.”
We hope to get this fire kindled in our fellow students and we’ll keep the rest of the Up To Us community updated on our progress.