Sociology Alumna Awarded for Extraordinary Community Service
Oneyda Hernandez ’23 received the Alumni Association’s 2024 Do Good Award in November, just a few months after also receiving a Rising Terp Award
What Oneyda Hernandez learned first from her mother, and then from her time in the University of Maryland’s Department of Sociology, today fuels the mutual aid group she co-founded with her siblings in 2020, the Audelia Community Response Team (ACRT).
Named after her late mother, Audelia Berrios de Hernandez, ACRT’s team of more than 60 volunteers has consistently provided food and other essential resources to more than 1,000 families in need in Langley Park and the surrounding areas. It operates on the deeply rooted belief that those in the community have a responsibility to take care of others in their community—which is also the reason why Hernandez says she had a hard time accepting the two UMD Alumni Association awards she received this year: a Rising Terp Award in February, and the Do Good Award in November.
“My mom made it known that we aren’t special for helping our community; helping our community is just something we should be doing. So when I was presented with the Do Good Award, I kept asking myself ‘Should I be here?’ because I’m just doing what I think I have to be doing,” explained Hernandez.
This feeling of responsibility for one’s community was deepened by the classes Hernandez took while pursuing her undergraduate degree in sociology, especially lecturer and academic advisor Amy McLaughlin’s SOCY461: Sociology in Action: Research and Community Engagement in Prince George's County.
“Although it might not be the focus of the sociology department, it does teach students empathy, and how to work with the community,” she said. “I took SOCY461 when I was on campus, and to this day I still help professor Amy with this class because she wants to make sure that students are aware of the communities that are surrounding campus. I think it's easy to forget that there are communities outside our campus, and professor Amy is very committed to making sure that students are aware of that.”
By day, Hernandez works as ACRT’s director of operations, checking in with the community members ACRT serves, making sure existing ACRT programs run smoothly, and thinking through ways to potentially add new programs or services to address the communities’ emerging needs. Current programs include weekly food distributions and deliveries (Wednesday and Thursday mornings, plus the first Saturday of every month) at Clifton Baptist Church in Silver Spring; monthly thrift “stores” at the church where individuals can get free clothes; and a program through which individuals can get hydroponic devices so that they can grow their own fruits and vegetables indoors.
“A lot of people in the communities we serve used to be farmers, and now they're living in apartments so they don't have the option of doing that. Using the hydroponic devices, they can get that farming feel and focus on self-sustainability and increasing their food security,” Hernandez said.
In the past, ACRT worked with community partners to host a free COVID-19 testing clinic, and to get people—ultimately more than 6,000 people—vaccinated. Hernandez said the latter was “a lot of work” considering how afraid members of the community were; compared to English, there were fewer Spanish, Creole, and French resources on the Covid-19 vaccine available to the community.
ACRT also hosts English Conversion Circles for individuals to practice speaking English with one another via Zoom; provides annual back-to-school giveaways that include backpacks, supplies and haircuts in partnership with Fresh Fades in White Oak; and toy “store” pop-ups for families to get their children free holiday gifts.
Hernandez hopes to soon offer sewing classes to community members too; the first classes will be led by a community member who used to work as a seamstress, with Hernandez hoping to learn enough to lead future classes herself, too.
Hernandez doesn’t just serve the community by day, however. From midnight to 8 a.m., she works as a 2-1-1 telephone operator, connecting Marylanders in need to resources in their community.
“Sometimes I'm like, ‘my God, I'm so tired,’ but then I remember I want to do other stuff and I'm like, okay, actually, I’ll get to sleep later,” Hernandez said with a laugh.
Hernandez says what’s next for ACRT isn’t totally predetermined because ACRT only wants to implement programs that they hear community members expressing explicit interest in. But, she has no doubts that no matter what, ACRT will live on for a long, long time.
“Community is what started Audelia, and I think community is what's going to keep it alive, because it's not only needed by the community, it's led by the community,” she said.
To learn more about the Audelia Community Response Team, follow them on Instagram @audeliacommunity.
To give to ACRT, donate via Venmo (@audeliacommunity) or shop their Amazon wishlists supporting clothing distributions, essentials distributions, the hydroponics project, sewing classes, and toy donations.
Photos provided by Oneyda Hernandez '23
Published on Mon, Dec 2, 2024 - 10:33AM