I’m highly uncoordinated,  and I find running around in front of people extremely embarrassing. I was hit in the mouth with a softball in 6th grade (sad), and was cut from the 8th grade girls basketball team for my inability to do a lay-up (it’s hard). Recognizing my lack of athletic prowess early on, I switched my focus to school organizations to grow my high school resume. But after a brief stint in Spanish club, my extracurricular involvement dwindled down to nothing. Time passed and intervention occurred by way of a parental mandate, and I had no choice but to find new opportunities to differentiate myself from other college applicants.

Enter Menorah Park nursing home. I spent a good three years of my life calling bingo numbers and serving chicken schnitzel and cottage cheese to people who claimed to hate me for serving it to them. Man, volunteering sure felt good.

I must not have been entirely scarred by my early volunteer experiences, because when I was introduced to AIGA as a student in 2003, I jumped right in. I held various roles with the organization—student representative, programming planner and volunteer coordinator, event attendee—yet couldn’t help but feel like a bit of an outsider. It’s intimidating as a young designer to break into the cliques of more established professionals who have known and worked with each other well before you even knew what design was. Still, I continued my engagement and preached the power of volunteering.

This past weekend AIGA Chicago held it’s first Co-Design workshop, and I was lucky enough to chair the event. At a high level, the two-day event was about stepping outside of your creative comfort zone, putting all your ideas on the table—good or bad—and coming together as a community (of designers, non-designers, teachers and students) to solve problems in a different way. This was not about how to make your business card or poster look better. This was about collaborating to create change in the world around us. This was meaningful.

It wasn’t until the planning team’s celebratory dinner at Avec that I realized I was really a part of this. My role was really making a difference—not only for the people who attended the event, but also for the people with whom I was sharing a delightful taleggio focaccia (drool). I learned, I grew and I formed bonds with people I might have not been connected to otherwise. And I liked it.

I was asked to speak at next week’s new members event about my experiences with AIGA and what the organization means to me. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say at first, but now I think it’s simple. It’s about people, connections and community. Those are three things, designer or not, that everyone needs.

So I encourage you, go out and find something to be a part of. Do it for yourself as well as the people you might not know if you don’t. Even if it takes wading through chicken schnitzel and cottage cheese to find it, I promise it’s worth it.

To learn more about AIGA and how you can get involved, visit aigachicago.org