Social Capital

It's a phrase I discovered only recently, in the context of research done by someone named Jacqueline Mattis at my alma mater (University of Michigan Ann Arbor) which she titled: 

Exploring Love and Transformative Engagement in the Diaspora (ELATED)

Looking into her research, I am now better able to verbalize one of my goals if not the primary goal for what I do, which is facilitate the growth of social capital among those who live outdoors. While Mattis' work concentrates specifically on African American and diasporic communities, there's significant overlap as many in those communities live outdoors as well as she (taken from Jacqueline Mattis, PH.D. | U-M LSA Center for the Study of Black Youth in Context (umich.edu)) "examines the extent to which, and ways in which, various domains of religiosity and spirituality (e.g., people’s self-definition as religious and or spiritual, involvement in formal and public aspects of religious life) inform such positive outcomes as forgiveness, empathy, compassion, altruism, volunteerism, and community involvement among those who live with the challenges associated with urban life."

These outcomes can be categorized as results of social capital, a term coined by Alexis De Tocqueville. L.J. Hanifan described it this way in 1916, contrasting it to material goods:

"I do not refer to real estate, or to personal property or to cold cash, but rather to that in life which tends to make these tangible substances count for most in the daily lives of people, namely, goodwill, fellowship, mutual sympathy and social intercourse among a group of individuals and families who make up a social unit.… If he may come into contact with his neighbour, and they with other neighbours, there will be an accumulation of social capital, which may immediately satisfy his social needs and which may bear a social potentiality sufficient to the substantial improvement of living conditions in the whole community. The community as a whole will benefit by the cooperation of all its parts, while the individual will find in his associations the advantages of the help, the sympathy, and the fellowship of his neighbours."

Social Capital is a major goal, but this cannot be accomplished with first facilitating a sense of community, which is a goal of serving a weekly dinner at the park. The meals are simple yet nutritious, The tactical goal is ensuring that people are nourished physically, while the tactical goal is to recreate the environment most commonly associated with the traditionally family dinner with the goal of building a sense of community.

Mattis' research has prompted me to reevaluate my approach. Mattis' faith is a factor in her research as she attempts to measure/document the correlation between Social Capital and faith. While I profess my faith as motivation for what I do, and we used to conduct a Bible Study after dinner (we were holding such a study when I was attacked and had a branch of my carotid severed by someone wielding a box cutter - but that's another story documented in another blog of mine), we no longer do anything overtly faith based (and one of our volunteers is an avowed atheist - but we're working on him in our own way), I'm beginning to feel like I need to make this overt in certain ways I have yet to determine. But it occurs to me that within a faith based perspective, I would be looking to facilitate fellowship. But that also means I would be overtly evangelizing those who come to dinner.