Arizona State University

Civic Engagement, Identity, and Group Mobilization

Final Paper

Niku Agahian
National Service and American Democracy CPP112
Dr. Jonathan G.S. Koppell
Dr. Eileen Eisen Cohen
Dr. Mullady
May 11, 2020

Introduction

This paper will survey Sacred Heart Community Service, a community service organization serving the

impoverished and homeless in Santa Clara County, in terms of identity, mobilization, and American

democracy, and compare these elements of this organization to other existing community service

organizations. Sacred Heart began as a true grassroots organization with one Catholic woman, Louise

Benson, distributing food to those in need, and was originally only civically engaged along the social

entrepreneurship pathway but in more recent years the organization has also become politically engaged

and has created a division of their organization that focuses solely on political issues such as rent control

and affordable housing. Sacred Heart works as a group to solve public problems such as hunger,

homelessness, and poverty by distributing food and clothes, providing job training, and assisting with

housing placement. They also provide many children’s services such as backpack drives, childcare, and

toy drives at Christmas that put over 6,000 new toys into the hands of needy children each year during the

holidays. In the true spirit of American democracy, the organization has built great success for over half a

century by mobilizing people with shared identities. “For 50 years Sacred Heart Community Service has

been making a positive impact on the lives of those who have the least.” (Gottschalk). As for political

engagement, they are currently working on rent control, affordable housing, and laws pertaining to the

homeless by staging planned protests, lobbying city hall, and speaking at city council meetings. The paper

will explore how their use of a shared identity and mobilization efforts within the American democracy

have led to their success by building social capital with tech companies, churches and youth groups.

Identity

Sacred Heart’s identity or shared characteristic that makes their members want to join the group, was

originally Catholic because Benson herself was a devout Catholic but the organization is no longer run as

a Catholic organization. However, their name Sacred Heart remains as a symbol of Catholicism which

helps them to draw support from the local Catholic churches and people who identify as Catholic in the

context of Santa Clara County. This type of identity symbolism is very similar to how Cesar Chavez used

religious symbols such as the Virgen de Guadalupe when founding the United Farm Workers (UFW)

union. UFW had a “tradition of adopting of symbols and icons to unify individuals for a cause.” (Pomona
College). Today, Sacred Heart hires, accepts volunteers and serves people from any and all religions. Just

as the Jewish Family and Children’s Services expanded to serve all the needy in their area, so did Sacred

Heart. Furthermore, amongst the volunteers at Sacred Heart you will see multiple large identity groups as

the organization draws in volunteer groups from different sectors such as tech workers, major law firms,

and youth groups, churches and honors their individual identities by having a themed day in their honor.

For instance, one day you will see the food distribution being managed by people who all identify as

Cisco employees and Sacred Heart will honor them by putting Cisco branding everywhere. The next day,

you will see a particular youth group with a shared identity such as Filipino managing the distribution and

being honored. There don’t appear to be any constructive or created identities at work in this situation

rather Sacred Heart seeks out groups of already existing identities from their social capital networks and

puts them to work to team build and enjoy their shared identities.

Civic and Political Engagement - Identity Divide

Sacred Heart is civically and politically engaged and is well respected for the social work it does for the

community from food distribution to job training, and by drawing in many different shared identity

groups has a favorable connection with many for this social work; however, their more recent addition of

a political division creates an identity divide for some. Their political engagement involves causes such as

rent control and affordable housing and the department is run by a group of advocates that identify as

liberals and socialists. Although this is a liberal county and many people support these causes there is

certainly an identity divide between this group and some people who identify as landlords, developers, or

conservative; however, overall, Sacred Heart is well respected for their civic engagement.

Mobilization and Drawing on Social Capital Networks

With a few hundred employees and a few thousand volunteers Sacred Heart is able to efficiently mobilize

large numbers of people by relying on their strong social capital networks, connecting with shared

identity groups, and the use of messages such as “A Community United” to inspire people to act. They

also use volunteer videographers to tell touching stories about their work and then reach potential

members by sharing these stories on social media but one of the main ways Sacred Heart has increased
mobilization is by building a board of directors that includes members with strong individual social

capital networks from places such as the City of San Jose, San Jose State University, large law firms, and

local companies which thereby gives the organization as a whole a very large social capital network to

draw upon when they need people to take action. These social capital networks give the organization

many arms through which they can reach people and also status that they can draw upon for mobilization.

For instance, instead of having only individuals sign up to volunteer for distribution programs and sorting

they are able to get volunteers by the hundreds because they use their social capital connections to get

groups with a shared identity to do the work together such as tech company employees and youth groups

members. They have created a situation in which the participating companies love to have their names,

and identities, on the work and so they are more than happy to participate. By drawing on their social

capital networks and those of their board, Sacred Heart is able to mobilize large groups very efficiently.

In the beginning, Benson’s mobilization efforts were very different from the #MeToo movement because

#MeToo was almost entirely reliant on social media whereas in Benson’s time she would have actually

had to go talk to people to gain support; therefore, her story is much more like Frances Willard of the

Women’s Christian Temperance Union in that they started as grassroots, reached others by going out and

speaking and drew upon their religious identity. Benson’s mobilization could also be compared to Judge

Robert Marx of the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) in that one person’s idea and a flare for

organizing and getting people to act created great rewards for those they serve. Of course, Sacred Heart

never grew to a national level like any of those organizations but through using their ever growing social

capital networks to mobilize groups with shared identities they have grown into a highly respected county

wide organization.

Democracy

America is a representative democracy like so many other democracies in that the people hold the

political power but they assign it to elected representatives; however, as noted by Alexis de Tocqueville in

his book “Democracy in America”, Americans are unique in that they create associations to accomplish

their goals. Tocqueville’s observation in the 1830’s still holds true today in organizations such as Sacred
Heart. The organization started as a grass roots organization when “Louise Benson founded Sacred Heart

Community Service in 1964 to feed hungry families in her neighborhood.” (SHCS) but over the years a

large association was formed by Americans coming together to solve the social problems of hunger,

poverty and homelessness and has grown in to a strong organization at the county level. Benson’s plight

to feed the hungry is a perfect example of American democracy’s desire to form organizations to solve

public problems. Like Judge Marx of DAV she did not wait for the government to act but took action by

forming an association.

Conclusion

Sacred Heart works to fix public problems such as hunger, homelessness and poverty by providing

resources such as job preparation and placement, rent control lobbying and food distribution through

mobilization of volunteers that share group identities such being Cisco employees, church members or

youth group members as well as drawing a following from Catholic specific organizations because of the

symbolism of their Catholic name. They mobilize these groups through social media, their well connected

board of directors, monthly meetings and large corporations team building. This is a perfect example of

American democracy at work in that Benson acted on her own accord instead of relying on the

government to fix the problems.When she saw the hunger problem she simply began feeding people

herself and started a grassroots association to feed her neighbors and mobilized people with the shared

identity of being Catholic.

References:

Gottschalk, Mary. “Sainte Louise” Bay Area News Groups, https://www.mercurynews.com/

2014/05/21/sainte-louise/ . May 21, 2014 at 12:03 p.m. Accessed May 4, 2020.

Iniguez, Alonso. “The Rise of Symbols and Icons in the United Farm Workers Movement”
Pomona College, https://allpower.wordpress.com/teaching/teaching-activities-2014/the-rise-of-
symbols-and-icons-in-the-united-farm-workers-movement-alonso-iniguez/ . March 2019.
Accessed May 6. 2020.

SHCS. “About Us” Sacred Heart Community Service https://sacredheartcs.org/about/ . Accessed

May 4, 2020.