This story was originally published on inStyle.com.
For the last six months, I’ve been living in Bloomington, Indiana, a quaint midwestern city dwarfed by the massive campus of Indiana University. Like many college towns, Bloomington is a hotbed for community activism. Just this month, I went to a meeting for immigrants’ rights, volunteered at a domestic violence shelter, served pizza to the local homeless population at an Episcopal church, and sang in a choir to combat climate change.
I love being part of this energetic and compassionate community—I’m from New York City where the closest thing we have to a community is a co-op in Brooklyn that has security guards to make sure no non-members get their hands on organic squash.