On Thursday October 15, 2020, Avery, Eric and I interviewed Team Care Force alum Andrew Duffy about his Â鶹ÊÓƵ experience and got some more insight into his life beyond Â鶹ÊÓƵ. We learned so much and are super grateful he took the time to chat with us.<\/p>\n
Andrew:<\/strong> I served with Â鶹ÊÓƵ Boston in 2008-2009\u00a0on the Young\u00a0Heroes\u00a0team.\u00a0My favorite memory, well it’s hard to pick just one, but I would say we had the\u00a0Young\u00a0Heroes Advisory\u00a0Board, which was a select group of our kiddos that had stepped up\u00a0for leadership roles. We did a sleepover as a team at\u00a0headquarters,\u00a0and I was\u00a0assigned\u00a0the boys’ room, which was\u00a0the\u00a0third-floor\u00a0computer lab. Somehow, the light switch that was automatic\u00a0got reversed, so when no one was moving, it would come on.\u00a0My night was spent, every 20-30 minutes, getting up and waving my arms to get the lights to go off. The kids could care less; they were out like lights, but that was one of those things that would only happen in Â鶹ÊÓƵ.<\/p>\n Andrew:<\/strong> If I\u00a0have to\u00a0just pick one, we went to Phoenix, Arizona, and we worked with Aramark. That project\u00a0they were repurposing an\u00a0old motel into a shelter for single mothers,\u00a0abused women\u00a0and homeless women.\u00a0It was at least 100 degrees every day, so sweating through whatever we wore and having to bring two or three pairs of everything. One of the bigger projects we had was moving a gazebo.\u00a0I always forget the proper term for it. But it was basically a sun awning from a motel across the street and relocating it behind one of the buildings. We realized that whoever the previous owner was\u00a0had filled in\u00a0an\u00a0inground swimming pool with concrete. There’s an entire humongous pool-sized\u00a0block of concrete that somehow also had a tree stump in it. I just recall my boss Hugh\u00a0and I spending an entire day trying to chip away at\u00a0this tree in the cement in 100-and-some-degree weather. Andrew:<\/strong> I currently serve as a\u00a0recruitment\u00a0manager as part of the East region for Â鶹ÊÓƵ.\u00a0The job has changed slightly this year. When I was first brought on, my market\u00a0was the entire state of North Carolina. Now, the process has changed a bit where I have a specific list of schools that I’m currently focusing on, so those are essentially my goal. My focus is to engage those schools, some through traditional means in terms of on-campus engagements and other things. Obviously, those things are on hold for right now.\u00a0The overall approach is to have a very robust approach of the traditional on-campus engagement: career\u00a0fairs, paneling and office hours. Then, the other part of the list is more virtual engagement, which we’ll hold through whenever we get back on campuses.\u00a0We use a platform known as\u00a0Handshake\u00a0that a lot of schools are going to have events\u00a0on to\u00a0do some messaging and marketing.\u00a0All of\u00a0my\u00a0schools are in North Carolina, but\u00a0I also am\u00a0working with\u00a0my team. One of my teammates\u00a0is from the\u00a0East\u00a0region; she’s covering North Carolina strictly at a virtual level, so\u00a0it’s working and collaborating with her, and I will eventually do some traveling. But as you know, this year is\u00a0both a new process and\u00a0sort of a new approach to things just given all that’s going on with virtual and digital spaces right now.<\/p>\n Andrew:<\/strong> Chief among them is collaboration both with team and with partners. We worked closely with Aramark,\u00a0T-Mobile and\u00a0CSX.\u00a0It was a great experience to understand how to wear different hats at any given moment. One minute you’re on the service site halfway into your cut list,\u00a0then turn around and there’s a principal, VP or CEO from your sponsor for that day. To have\u00a0the ability to get into a moment and\u00a0focus in on tasks but then also be able to transition quickly into an elevator speech. It\u2019s a skill to nail\u00a0the why. Physically,\u00a0we’re doing a mural or we’re doing picnic benches or something else but expanding on\u00a0that to say, “This bench\u00a0 is going to be a place for somebody to sit.\u00a0Even more, it’s a place to convene and share stories or maybe lead a class or sharing meal with someone.” I think for me that was the best\u00a0part,\u00a0really\u00a0honing in\u00a0on\u00a0my skills of being able to collaborate across the different aspects of the role,\u00a0which in turn have led me to even be able to leverage those skills in what I do now. Andrew:<\/strong> Number one, specific to\u00a0Care Force,\u00a0be prepared and willing to learn. And that is not simply with respect to power\u00a0tools,\u00a0cut lists,\u00a0measurements and things like that. It kind of touches on what I had previously just said, you’re\u00a0going to\u00a0learn about how the organization interacts with different parties in different populations, and really begin to understand larger concepts of what that looks like. You can start to see\u00a0beyond just going to service at your school. While that’s the core of our work and our mission, Care Force\u00a0definitely opened\u00a0my eyes to, for lack of a better term, the back end\u00a0of the process and relationships. I think being an active and engaged learner is incredibly important. Having the willingness to ask questions, at least for me, that\u00a0was something that was\u00a0really important. I was never afraid to kind of look silly or possibly stupid by asking what would seem\u00a0like a\u00a0simple question.\u00a0Safety\u00a0is also very important,\u00a0as someone who injured themselves a couple times during my corps year.\u00a0Safety also\u00a0loops into learning. Safety is always being aware and always understanding what’s happening, what’s going around, being curious about it, as well taking on different\u00a0tasks. Also,\u00a0not\u00a0just specifically focusing on the service site, prep, cut lists and things like that but also\u00a0expanding into those areas of external affairs, partnership development and then really being open and honest about what it is that you’re looking to get out of those moments as well. Really volunteering to put your whole self into the year of service beyond just getting to the airport on time and such.<\/p>\n Andrew:<\/strong> That’s an easy question. I would even say specifically in\u00a0Care Force\u00a0there have been\u00a0tethers throughout my entire adult life. Whether it’s teammates of mine during my\u00a0Care Force year who I’m still in touch with, some of whom I’ve gone to their weddings and now are converted with photos of their children on Instagram and Facebook. It is\u00a0also old supervisors that I now work alongside or stay in communication\u00a0with,\u00a0some of whom have been mentors for me both during my\u00a0Care Force\u00a0year, and perhaps even more. I’m going to talk about the relationships you build. Ted and,\u00a0at the time, Will Holbrook were huge influences for me, both in work and in life. Chris, obviously, huge on that.\u00a0Both of the\u00a0Hughs\u00a0were big for me during the year. For me, that was always the pull. The\u00a0understanding\u00a0that\u00a0once I was outside of the direct community of Â鶹ÊÓƵ\u00a0because there’s always sort of that secondary and tertiary element of you’re always connected. You’re always involved with people that you know, but that was always the draw\u00a0for me\u00a0was to get back into the very direct working community with people whom\u00a0work at\u00a0a caliber that I’ve experienced in my professional career. I see this especially\u00a0after going to other working environments and being in other communities where there isn’t a priority on the things that our organization\u00a0prioritizes.\u00a0Other organizations are\u00a0entirely\u00a0different, and it was, in many cases, a quick realization that\u00a0it was not the working environment for me. So that was as much an influence and a motivator for me to stay connected and return to the organization as anything else.<\/p>\n Andrew:<\/strong> I’d say a big learning moment was learning how to ask for help. I don’t know if you all have done the leadership compass, but\u00a0I am incredibly north. It paid its dividends in working for\u00a0Care Force in many ways and was able to lean into that a lot. But it also made me the type of person to take on everything, try and get everything done and sort of put blinders on within the work in the service. That,\u00a0in some cases,\u00a0would lead to over-exerting\u00a0myself. I always had this approach\u00a0that\u00a0everyone has a second wind, but Care Force requires you to have a third or fourth wind at times. I would always push through those moments when, in fact, there could have been an opportunity to have somebody else help with the\u00a0cut list or somebody else take on some of what I was focused on\u00a0or what I was prioritizing in my mind.\u00a0For me, I think that was big. It is learning to ask for help and not feeling like doing so is some sort of knock against me,\u00a0it was basically removing my ego out of it.\u00a0Then\u00a0feeling like that is an acceptable and a smart approach to things rather than a weakness in the work itself.<\/p>\n Andrew:<\/strong> A lot of ways I’m still connected to\u00a0the majority of\u00a0my teammates. As I said,\u00a0I have attended weddings and\u00a0friends on various social media outlets. But there’s still the attempt there to stay connected and stay involved in people’s lives. I talked about having had supervisors\u00a0during\u00a0my\u00a0Care Force year\u00a0that have really extended themselves and their generosity in mentoring me beyond my service\u00a0year\u00a0as well. Yet again, highlighting\u00a0Will, for example, who has been a huge cheerleader of mine in\u00a0a number of\u00a0pursuits professionally over the years and has always sort of been able to\u00a0encourage and support me in in those pursuits. I feel like there’s never been a moment where I’ve reached out to an old supervisor from\u00a0Care Force and\u00a0been told that now’s not a good time. There is a sense as an alum, and I can probably speak for my teammates and some other Care Force alums, there is a sense from the alumni side of things that there’s a willingness and a desire of our previous supervisors and current supervisors to maintain that connection. Whether it’s through\u00a0fantasy\u00a0football leagues or serving as reserves, those are things\u00a0I\u00a0definitely leaned\u00a0into. After I left the team,\u00a0it was nice\u00a0just to reconnect to the to the power and the enjoyment of observing on sites and on projects. I think for me, that’s sort of the biggest takeaway as an alum. It\u2019s that\u00a0there’s an active and earnest engagement from the Care Force team to kind of reach out and stay connected, and that’s not always the case. As I’ve heard from other people and of their service years, the teams that they’ve served on previously\u00a0don\u2019t have\u00a0that level of engagement there.<\/p>\n Andrew:<\/strong> For me, it’s a bit strange given the fact that I’ve been fully remote since I’ve started this position. Working from home for me has always been a thing. It’s new to everyone else, but it’s an old hat. For me, it\u00a0definitely has\u00a0thrown a wrench in the work that I do in the recruitment, just given the fact that now everything is based virtually or digitally.\u00a0That’s been a bit of a struggle, just because I enjoyed the travel element of it. It\u00a0takes me back to my\u00a0Care Force days of working one week out of the office a month and the other three weeks being on the road, flying here to there, and doing\u00a0that was something I really enjoyed. That was an element and an aspect of what I did here. Driving around the state of North Carolina, getting to know what’s out there. Going out and climbing a mountain as part of a trip out to Asheville or Boone. Funnily enough, I found that I didn’t hate long drives as much as I thought I would. I found that after the first hour, it is what it is;\u00a0you\u00a0kind of just get into a zone on it. I’m coming from Massachusetts, where I’m originally from. It was sort of inconceivable to be able to\u00a0actually drive\u00a0anywhere more than an hour and a half and not be in a completely different state, so that’s been something\u00a0new for me. In sort of my personal preference of working,\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0not being able to get out and sort of pound the pavement and meet people. I definitely\u00a0have\u00a0sort of an old school approach in that. That\u00a0especially\u00a0comes from\u00a0Care Force,\u00a0having those volunteer days where you’re meeting hundreds of people at a time, shaking hands, giving high fives and saying hello.\u00a0Having that\u00a0face-to-face,\u00a0person-to-person interaction is something that I also enjoyed. Part of my work was going out to career\u00a0fairs and\u00a0being able to interact with students\u00a0in the\u00a0Career Center. I would also be\u00a0meeting other employers\u00a0and\u00a0seeing the same faces at\u00a0all our\u00a0events. So you\u00a0would\u00a0know the Peace Corps person is the same person at the Wake Forest event as it is at Appalachian State.\u00a0It’s\u00a0definitely been\u00a0a full stop on the travel element, and it’s\u00a0definitely a\u00a0strange experience now to have everything more virtual\u00a0than it was,\u00a0even though it was part of what I did already.\u00a0Now, I\u2019m being on video calls\u00a0or\u00a0having days like yesterday; from nine till six you’re in events, you’re in one chat room and then you jump into another chat room, and at times, you’re on a video chat with someone while you’re in\u00a0like a\u00a0text-based\u00a0chat room with another one.\u00a0It’s been an interesting but still enjoyable logistical\u00a0challenge at times.\u00a0We’ll see what comes\u00a0for the rest of the semester and\u00a0in the spring semester, but hopefully, fingers crossed, we can return to some relative\u00a0normalcy.<\/p>\n Andrew:<\/strong> One of the things that I took on during quarantine because I always had this excuse at the back of my head that if I had a home gym,\u00a0I would go every day,\u00a0and I would be the fittest person.\u00a0This spring, I decided to get an\u00a0exercise bike.\u00a0It was sort of facing the music on that excuse of\u00a0alright, the home gym processes started. Now, what excuse\u00a0are you going to come up with, and luckily, there were times where I was able to kind of look past that excuse.\u00a0For a while, I was\u00a0pretty regular. I’ve since moved and had to order a new one, and the logistics of that are a mess. So that’s my new excuse, right? But I would say exercise has been something that I really leaned into.\u00a0I think the month of July, I exercise more in that month than I had the previous six or\u00a0seven years,\u00a0however far you want to go back. That\u00a0is then\u00a0quantifiable because you can look at it, and say I worked out this\u00a0and that, then go back and be like, I didn’t do anything for the whole month of February. So,\u00a0it’s something\u00a0for me that I really leaned into and will continue to. The other thing that is sort of on that round, that will soon be a venture of mine,\u00a0is I no longer have dogs, but\u00a0I’ll be getting a dog at some point. So that’ll be something to fill my time as well. I’m right around the corner from a dog park. So,\u00a0I am already set up for that, and\u00a0I\u2019ll use the dog again as another excuse to get out.<\/p>\n Andrew:<\/strong> I don’t know if I’ve picked it up, but maybe, now I’m more of a cleaner than I was. If\u00a0I find myself in that moment of, “I’m bored,” or something,\u00a0and\u00a0I don’t want to watch anything on Netflix, the default is either I\u00a0work out\u00a0or there’s got to be something around here that I can clean.\u00a0There’s always something to do. There’s always a floor to be vacuumed\u00a0or something. I feel like that Geico commercial where you turn into parents; my dad was always the cleaner. He would always do everything; he was like Danny Tanner, both in appearance and personality. I feel like I’m my dad now looking at piles of things\u00a0asking, “What can I throw out here? What needs to go in a hamper?” or something like that.\u00a0Weave that into sort of the elements that I really pulled from my\u00a0Care Force year, I\u2019m a\u00a0huge proponent of\u00a0camp firing and the concept of leaving it better than you found it.\u00a0I apply that more to life in general than sort of the conceptual element of that. I’ve long considered getting a disposable\u00a0bag or\u00a0taking a shopping bag with me on walks or runs and picking up trash, but I haven’t reached that level of an environmental activist. I guess we’ll say, it’s still a thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Thursday October 15, 2020, Avery, Eric and I interviewed Team Care Force alum Andrew Duffy about his Â鶹ÊÓƵ…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-impact","locality-care-force"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat was your favorite\u00a0Care\u00a0Force trip and why?<\/h2>\n
\nMy other favorite memory from that also involves heat and sweat. We went out to dinner at a Greek restaurant with Hugh\u00a0McDonald, who now works in the\u00a0southern\u00a0region as a\u00a0managing\u00a0director for\u00a0recruitment. We decided we were going to share a meat platter of all sorts of different meats.\u00a0It was on that trip that I was able to confirm that meat sweats are an actual thing.\u00a0It was hands down one of the hardest trips in terms of working\u00a0pretty long\u00a0days in 100-plus-degree weather but then also having the reward on the back end of that,\u00a0feeling like you put so much into it, and we got so much done.\u00a0So\u00a0getting there at five in the morning to do a newscast, and then working all the way through the day. I think that was one of the trips\u00a0that there were a lot of great memories, teammates and having dinner like I said, and stuff like that.\u00a0I think it was a great sort of encapsulating trip to have a lot of good memories from sort of the anguish and victories of service, but also some of the more personal elements of dinner and memories of friends.<\/p>\nWhat is your current position and job responsibilities?<\/h2>\n
What skills did you develop with Team Care Force that are most relevant to your current work?<\/h2>\n
\nOn Team Care Force, we were constantly meeting new people,\u00a0constantly introducing the organization to those who have otherwise never heard of it, engaging our partners and our champions at our schools.\u00a0I\u2019d\u00a0definitely add\u00a0relationship\u00a0building and understanding that at all times, you\u00a0have to\u00a0be prepared to be a representative and a champion of\u00a0Â鶹ÊÓƵ.\u00a0You never know who you’re going to meet,\u00a0in what moment you’re going to meet\u00a0them and then potentially what ripples that could have to future engagements or future opportunities. I would say that sort of energy was kind of what brought me to\u00a0Care Force. I heard about Â鶹ÊÓƵ,\u00a0it\u00a0stuck and I wanted to stay with\u00a0Â鶹ÊÓƵ. I met a corps member or alum from\u00a0Care Force, and they gave me a\u00a0really great, genuine elevator speech about why choose\u00a0Care Force;\u00a0they really helped\u00a0me out.<\/p>\nWhat advice would you give future Care Force members?<\/h2>\n
What\u00a0made you want to come back to Â鶹ÊÓƵ?<\/h2>\n
What was a major learning moment for you during Care Force?<\/h2>\n
In what ways have you engaged with\u00a0Care Force\u00a0or\u00a0Â鶹ÊÓƵ\u00a0as an\u00a0alum?<\/h2>\n
How has COVID-19 altered your current role? How are you adapting?<\/h2>\n
Are there any activities or skills that you started doing during quarantine that you wouldn’t have otherwise?<\/h2>\n
Are there any other hard or soft skills you’ve picked up?<\/h2>\n