I lived in my Neighboring neighborhood for six months before I learned about being a VISTA in that area. I knew that there were plans in place to begin revitalizing the area, but I really didn’t have a clue as to who was involved, or how to become a part of the work. When I became a VISTA in August, and began serving with HandsOn Northwest North Carolina, it was like taking a grand glimpse behind the scenes of an incredibly delicate operation.
Becoming involved in the Neighboring model in my own neighborhood was one of the most empowering things I have ever done. I went from knowing my neighbors by their faces, to knowing them by their skills and hobbies, their children and their parents. I began getting to know what they loved and cared about, and what they missed most about their community.
I felt encouraged to be an advocate for these things, and put all of my energy into helping create programs that mattered to my neighbors. We began a mobile soup kitchen on our site that serves anyone in need of a meal for free, every Saturday. We created a program for our elderly neighbors that guarantee that they get a hot meal and socialization on a weekly basis.
We’ve reached out to our local elementary school and started literacy interventions to help with both the preschoolers and the English-Second-Language parents. We’ve run a Summer Camp with nothing but willing volunteers and construction paper. We continue tonight, with our second community meal, which will feature discussion about moving forward with several other new initiatives: a lending library, a clothing drive, a neighborhood clean-up, and a computer lab. As the Principal of our local school told me recently, “you’re making this into a place where I want to live!”
The true impact of what I’m doing really hit me Friday evening. I went to a meeting with my Advisory Council, at which they told me that a man in our neighborhood had passed away unexpectedly. The man was someone I had grown quite fond of, and whom I had seen every Saturday since the soup lunches began. In fact, I had been the last person to speak with him before he passed away last Saturday night. I was shaken at that thought- that I should have been the last smile he saw, the last hug he received, or the last kind word he’d heard. It was humbling.
This morning, just before submitting this blog entry, I attended his funeral. It was a simple affair, held in a tiny Black Apostolic church in a part of town I normally would think twice about entering. Herman- that was his name- had lived his life embroiled in drugs and alcohol, and his death had been attributed to Cirrhosis of the liver. The church was full of men and women of all ages, and many of whom I knew to be involved in the same way of life that had led to Herman’s demise.
A year ago, I would’ve been scared to walk through those doors- an obvious outsider who had no business being there. But today, I was their family.
They knew my name; they knew how fond I had been of Herman, and that the sentiment had been returned. I looked around and realized that I knew these faces. These faces were the women and men who received the soup we provided every week; whose children attended our summer camp; whose mothers and fathers were being visited and loved by a team of strangers bearing food. I made that possible. I am Morgan Owen, Neighboring VISTA for HandsOn Northwest North Carolina, and I love my job.
Morgan Owen
HandsOn Corps VISTA: HandsOn NWNC
As I hit the six month mark of my VISTA year, it’s unbelievable to me that my term is halfway over, but at the same time, I also feel that I have been living here inIowafor much longer. Before taking the position of School Engagement Coordinator at the Volunteer Center of Story County coordinating school garden and Farm to School education, I had never set foot inIowa, or even any of the states that bordered it. I was a liberal East Coaster born and bred, and to be honest,Iowascared me a little bit. It was the land of big agriculture and it was really flat, and that was the extent of my knowledge. While those two things are indeed true in many respects (though the Northern and Eastern parts of the state are not at all flat, and very beautiful!), much of what I have gained has been an entirely new perspective on my country, and on the Midwest andIowaespecially. I have gotten to know individuals who I would never have crossed paths with had I not taken “the plunge” and moved toIowa. Most valuable to me has been the lesson that wherever I go, I will find not only a community of talented, passionate people that are interested in the same change that I am, but equally important, those that have a different perspective on things, but with whom I can exchange a great deal of valuable insight, and also get along with on a personal level.
There have been many moments in the last six months where I have felt like a fish out of water. But these moments have also been my most memorable and valuable ones. For example, the moment I found myself sitting in a room full of corn and bean farmers (each of whom cultivate anywhere from 300 to 3000 acres, and likely inherited that land from their fathers) learning about the nuances of cover cropping in a corn and bean rotation. Out of my element? Definitely. But I learned about much more than the optimal time to kill your winter rye before planting. That workshop is something that I perhaps could have imagined aboutIowapreviously, but I never would have guessed that in the next rooms, there would be discussions on season extension using hoop houses, and fruit and nut tree propagation. And that all of these different farmers and non-farmers would later in the evening gather to enjoy each others’ company, and drink a lot of Iowan whiskey.
That has been the most valuable lesson I have learned from my time inIowa– that people are incredibly complex, and that all the broad stroke definitions that we come up with to define different places or different people are at best ignorant, and at worst very damaging. In the often contentious world of agriculture, one would think thatIowawould be ground zero for the kind of intolerant blame games that are so common. And that doubtless does happen. But what I have begun to discover in my six months is that a culture of coexistence and exchange is flourishing here – one that can be an example to us all. I have been lucky to meet incredibly talented, passionate and above all welcoming and warmhearted people, such as I can only hope to encounter when I move on afterVISTA. Will I stay inIowa? Likely no (centralIowareally is quite flat). But the experience that myVISTAterm here has given me is one that will inform the rest of my life, and has truly changed my perspective on the incredibly diverse cultural landscape that makes up our country.
Kristen Loria
HandsOn Corps VISTA: Volunteer Center of Story County
In celebration of AmeriCorps Week 2012, we challenge you to show us how “AmeriCorps Works” for you and your local community. Video submissions must be 1:30 minutes or less, and clearly demonstrate the positive impact of your service project, not only for your local/national community, but for your personal and professional growth.
Videos must showcase the mission of your organization, include logos for all featured organizations (including AmeriCorps and HandsOn Corps), and contain original, legal and appropriate material.
Send completed videos to acworkscontest2012@gmail.com by March 9th, 2012. Videos will be posted to the HandsOn Corps Fan page on March 12th, 2012. Voting will be open from March 12th to March 19th and is open to members and the community. Videos will be judged based on the number of likes it receives.
Please note: Only one clip per person can be entered.
By submitting a video, you agree to the National Volunteer Week Contest TOS of this contest. If you have any questions, please contact kvenning@handsonnetwork.org.
Stay tuned for a list of prizes!
If you have questions about the contest requirements, please contact Lucy Zhou at lzhou@handsonnetwork.org, Carrisa Pawell at cpawell@pointsoflight.org, or Ja’Nell Henry at jhenry@handsonnetwork.org.
From the outset, my role as a VISTA at HandsOn Greater DC Cares in Washington, D.C. has required me to wear a lot of hats. There are five of us “neighboring VISTAs,” as we’re called here, and we pretty much have our hands in everything the organization does. We’re constantly meeting with residents and nonprofits, telling them about our various programs, volunteer opportunities and the various ways we help build the capacity of over 800 organizations across the D.C. metropolitan area.
The four large days of service we put on annually have proved to be a great way to make a positive difference in our neighborhoods, whether it is because we’re able to engage groups of community volunteers or because we are able to accomplish large projects that make a noticeable difference at local nonprofits. Back in September, I visited a school in my neighborhood that serves over 420 low-income kids from Head Start through 8th grade. It was too late to prepare a project for the 9/11 weekend of service, but I promised the principal she would be the first on my list for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service.
Sure enough, when December rolled around, I visited the school once more to finalize the project, which included painting murals in the dull, off-white bathrooms per the request of the student body, cleaning some classrooms and painting words of character on the walls of the plain middle school hallway. These small improvements together would make the school a happier, more encouraging place to learn. But the Sunday before MLK Day, I received a call that changed the whole day: the President of the United States was coming to the school that day too!
When we arrived at the school, my 22 volunteers were confused by the extra security, large numbers of people milling about and my hesitancy to give them any details. Once we were allowed inside, we were funneled into the school’s cafeteria with other volunteer groups. As soon as they saw the “Serve.gov” banner, my volunteers knew exactly what was about to happen. Within the hour, the President, First Lady and oldest daughter, Malia, were speaking to us about the importance of living Dr. King’s legacy through service. The president noted that everyone has the power to make a positive difference in their community, in ways large and small, something we continually emphasize in our neighboring model.
After the president spoke, I expected that he would move off to his project with his family. But when he put the microphone down, he didn’t leave the room. Instead, he walked around and asked every single volunteer their name, shook their hand and thanked them for serving. Mrs. Obama and Malia followed behind doing the same. After meeting the First Family, my volunteers were on Cloud 9 and all the more motivated to make it a great day of service. Due to security constraints, we were only able to complete part of our planned project. But the impact of hearing the president commend volunteer efforts will surely inspire me and my volunteers for years to come as we all work to make Washington, D.C. a better place to live.
Linda Kurtz
HandsOn Corps VISTA: HandsOn Greater DC Cares
Two and a half years ago, I graduated from college eager to step into the ‘real world’. As a student majoring in Sociology, I spent my years as an undergraduate discussing, researching and writing about race, class, and gender, with very little opportunity to engage with the issues first-hand. Sure, my student body was diverse in race and class (though as an all women’s college, not gender), and yes, I studied in New York City, perhaps the most diverse city in the United States. But still, within the walls of an academic institution, explorations and engagements with the sociological questions in my seminars, and the topics in my readings, was limited to the imagination and simulated realities of a college campus.
In the first half of my year of service at HandsOn Greater DC Cares, I have had ample opportunity to apply the things I learned in class, and truly engage with the issues that challenged me as a student. In my outreach and work with non-profit partners, as well as in my exploration and learning about the dynamics and complexity of Washington DC, sociological themes play a central role in the work that I do day to day.
While I have gained tremendously from the opportunity for such real-world application, it wasn’t until two Sundays ago, at the Americorps-organized Sunday Supper I attended, that I realized what I have lost in the process. While I now work in communities and on issues that are directly affected by the racial, class, and gender realities of the greater Washington DC region, I spend almost no time critically analyzing or discussing these issues.
The Sunday Supper was a terrific opportunity to use one example- of persisting segregation in a high school in Mississippi –to discuss broader themes of race in American society. Alongside community members, we watched a film entitled ‘Prom Night in Mississippi’, in which a high school struggles to put an end to a long tradition of segregated proms. The actor Morgan Freeman intervenes in this tradition in 2008, offering to pay for an integrated prom if the students take the lead in organizing it. This film sparked a discussion about the status of race relations in our country, and specifically, how geography plays a major role in the evolution of integration and tolerance. The conversation continued with one of my colleagues on our way home, as we acknowledged the role of class and gender in any conversation relating to race, and vice versa.
In 2009, when I left the Ivory tower, I looked forward to a professional career in which I could actively engage with the social problems I studied so abstractly in college. While I have been privileged enough to do exactly that in my position at HandsOn Greater DC Cares, I am also grateful for the opportunities to occasionally don the academic hat and stop, reflect, and discuss, too. I think doing so is an imperative component of growing as a professional, and as a person.
Sara Draper-Zivetz
HandsOn Corps National Direct Member: HandsOn Greater DC Cares
Back in October of last year, during the annual AmeriCorps Member retreat, one of the presenters asked the group to think about past volunteer experiences and consequently, stand up if volunteering was in your past. One by one people started standing up and soon everyone was standing. Except for me. People started reflecting on their past volunteer experiences, talking about how they’ve served food in soup kitchens or volunteered with kids in an impoverished area. Prior to joining AmeriCorps, volunteering was not in my vocabulary. In my circle of people, volunteering was done to get something in return– as a part of a requirement of some sort. I figured that since it was not “required” for me in any of my classes, I was lucky because I didn’t have to go out of my way. During my childhood I didn’t see much of selfless acts around me in the community. Giving your life to something you believe in, free of pay was not a part of my culture.
Being among all the good doers now was a shock, frankly I started feeling like I didn’t belong even though I really wanted to, I wanted in. I sat there and thought that I was fortunate enough to be brought up in a hassle- free life, where I had all the basic needs a kid could ask for. My parents were always all about my education and any extra- curricular activities I wanted to do. I was rarely denied anything I wanted and was not put in situations where I saw people who did.
When I accepted the AmeriCorps positionwith United Way of Lake County, I knew it was based in an area where there was a large need for help. However, I didn’t realize how large the need was. As I learned more and more about the community that I was now working in, I finally started feeling like I can be an agent of change for these people. The community is predominantly Hispanic, with a 14% living below the poverty line. Needles to say the majority of school- age children in the community need some sort of assistance. United Way of Lake County does a great job covering many areas of need and I am lucky to be a part of UWLC and have the ability to help. I help out with one of the four programs at UWLC but it’s so much more than that. I constantly try to find a way to “branch out” and get involved in other community events. I feel like sometimes it takes one person to change a life.
Not only do I feel like I’m finally doing something past my own nose but I want to get “my circle” involved as well. My family and close friends understand where I’m coming from and immediately jumped on the bandwagon but some people seem resistant. One of our projects called for a donation of children’s toothbrushes and I immediately knew someone who would be able to do that. According to the AmeriCorps agreement, I was not able to ask directly, but had a family member do it because of their affiliation with the dental office. The request for toothbrushes was denied faster than lightning, which is highly disappointing but at the same time made me realize that many people out there might not have been fortunate enough to be around people like I am.
In just a few short months, I feel like I’ve gone from a person who unwillingly would not pay enough attention to people that are not in my immediate circle, to a person who willingly dislikes people who have the opportunity to help and just wont.
Nina Lomsky
HandsOn Corps National Direct Member: United Way of Lake County
My host site is the Center for Volunteer and Nonprofit Leadership and I am responsible for coordinating and strengthening off-site workshops with diverse communities. Every morning I drive toMarinCounty, one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, situated in the Bay Area. My work is concentrated in three distinguished communities in Marin:San Rafael’s Canal,MarinCityand West Marin.
In close proximity to Downtown San Rafael, the Canal provides a substantial portion of the low-income housing in one of the most affluent counties in theUnited States. The homes are inhabited mainly by Latinos who primarily hold low-income jobs.
In the southern region ofMarinCountyliesMarinCity, a predominately African American community. Presently, it offers subsidized housing to Marin residents. At theSeniorCenter, convened by ISOJI or Grassroots Leadership Network, residents discuss topics about housing, education, transportation and community programs.
West Marin attracts many tourists to the county with its beautiful scenery and sustainable agriculture.Core to the community is the San Geronimo Community Center andDancePalace. These organizations welcome community members to participate in classes, programs and musical events but they also hold meetings to discuss issues such as healthcare and locality.
Now back to my work at CVNL (the Center). I spend most of my time in the office learning about how programs strengthen nonprofits. I find myself asking “what trainings are needed to support nonprofits in the work that they do everyday?” and “what resources doMarinCountynonprofits need?”
Although I simply attend these community meetings, they advise my work and my approach to how we get services to the communities. After several meeting, I began to think that communities have all of these “real” concerns, which can be much more important than capacity building. Ultimately, capacity building activities include any activity that strengthens the performance of a nonprofit such as consulting services, workshops on board training, finance or training on grant writing. Sometimes community members talk about their concerns with housing, parenting, transportation or car impoundments and I try to resolve how community concerns fit in with capacity building.
I have been able to relate community concerns with capacity building by recognizing that if an organization is healthy, so is the community. If there is no organizational support for the community, then we are not working towards the alleviation of many social problems. Nonprofits do the work they do in alignment with their mission for the people that they serve, and management support for the organizations I engage with is crucial so they can keep on doing the type of work that they do in their communities.
Dulce Galicia
HandsOn Corps VISTA: Center for Volunteer and Nonprofit Leadership of Marin
Jubilee REACH is a non-profit community center that is truly making a difference in people’s lives! Our organization’s mission is to “Love, Listen and Learn”. This helps us identify what the real needs are, both tangible and intangible, so we can fill those needs! Jubilee REACH has over 30 programs, and all of them started from a need in the community. As a result, Jubilee REACH serves to mentor kids and be a positive influence in their lives. Our programs provide a healthy, safe environment that keep kids off the streets and out of harmful situations.
To help Jubilee expand our reach, we will be implementing an internship program for High School and College students. This will allow students to gain hands-on experience, be mentored by Jubilee REACH staff, and improve work-related skills. – According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) new college graduates who had participated in internships did far better in the job market than their classmates who had not had that experience.
I have worked to create the framework for this internship program by developing strategic steps for implementation and researching successful internship program structures. I have also created job descriptions for all of our internship opportunities which include Marketing and Promotion, Public Relations, Administrative Assistant, Community Hospitality, Retail, Sports and Volunteer Management. I have also created a welcome packet, and application documents and templates for Jubilee REACH to use.
I am thrilled to have helped develop structure for Jubilee’s internship program. I truly believe it will benefit Jubilee REACH and individuals involved in our programs. This internship program will help Jubilee REACH extend our reach by helping alleviate stress of program and volunteer leaders decreasing the risk of burn-out, giving Jubilee REACH staff the ability to network, helping to ensure we work with excellence by increasing professional development, increasing Marketing and Promotion of Jubilee REACH, and conserves financial resources. This will help build capacity and bring sustainability to Jubilee REACH as a whole.
Rachel Hood Riley
HandsOn Corps VISTA: The C4 Group, Jubilee REACH
In these past few months of AmeriCorps service I have gained wonderful working experience and have made an impact on my community. My host site is the United Way of Lake County in Gurnee Illinois. I am responsible for co-coordinating the Computer Learn and Earn program. This program gives away refurbished computers to parents who attend three computer training sessions. The classes cover basic computer skills, the parent portal at the high school, and parenting tips and graduation requirements. I am responsible for parent recruitment, volunteer sustainability, and record tracking.
Parent recruitment is one of the best parts of this job. I have come in contact with parents who are skeptical about the program and do not want to participate. Parents believe that they will not actually receive a free computer. The area that we service has a large immigrant community. I have found that there is also hesitation to participate because they believe that that there will be a review of their legal status to be eligible for the program. When I explain to them that the Computer Learn and Earn program only requires them to have a child in grades 6 through 12 in district and not have a home computer they are happy to participate. That change that occurs once the parents know there is no threat and the services are provided in their native language. Parents become more receptive to receiving help and accepting new ideas.
At one of my recruitment events I met the Colunga family. They have three children in the Waukegan public schools, and the two oldest daughters attend the high school. I introduced the program to them informing them if they attended three training sessions they could earn a free computer for their home. They started to tell me that they could not afford a computer for their family, and that they really wanted their daughters to attend college. They asked me a few questions about my high school and college experience. I gave them information about possible scholarship opportunities that are available to their daughters locally. They were extremely happy to know that there are opportunities available for their children. They told me that it was nice to see a kid from the neighborhood giving back. This made me feel that my term of service is going to make an impact in the community were I grew up. I feel blessed to have the opportunity to inform people of different possibilities available to them and maybe guide families to support their children’s aspirations for higher education.
I cannot write a blog about my AmeriCorps service without thanking all the volunteers that make the programs that I coordinate possible. Without the time and dedication of these individuals there would be no Computer Learn and Earn program. 177 families would be without a home computer. Parents would be less aware of their student’s academic progress. For the past year volunteers have helped to collect, refurbish, and distribute computers to low income families in the Waukegan area. They have had a hand educating parents about the American educational system. When parents are informed about their child’s educational life they are more willing to address problems that come up. The volunteers of our program have provided families with tools and education that can help students succeed in school.
This year of service has changed the way I look at “problems” in the community. One would think that parents who do not access educational tools to track their student’s academic progress have no interest to do so. Providing families with the proper education in a comfortable setting begins a process for change. Change can be the difference between a high school student graduating or dropping out.
Cynthia Castrejon
HandsOn Corps National Direct Member: United Way of Gurnee Illinois
The most rewarding element of myVISTAservice with HandsOn Northeast Ohio (NEO) is hosting our weekly Homework Help tutoring program inCleveland’s Ward 5. Every Wednesday evening throughout the school year, a group of fourth and fifth grade students (and occasional third grade cousin or sixth grade holdout from the year past) come to the Garden Valley Neighborhood House for a home cooked meal and a few hours of individual tutoring with some of our best volunteers.
Volunteer tutors do not arrive at the Neighborhood House until just prior to6pm, but the prep work for each week begins two days earlier when I design the menu for that week’s session. Each week features salad, an entrée, a side dish, a dessert, and milk. The next day, I prepare each student’s individual Homework Help Notebook and begin putting together the meal. Before serving with HandsOn NEO, I proudly served along the West Coast with the AmeriCorps NCCC. As part of my team Green 1, I learned to cook on a budget for a large group of very hungry people. Though we generally did not have an oven or stove to cook with, I learned how to piece together filling and satisfying meals for large groups on a tight budget. I learned to improvise pans, ingredients, and cooking methods to yield edible results. I’ve taken that skill and applied it to meal planning for Homework Help.
Thankfully, I have stove (and oven!) access and get to bake in a far more traditional way for these students. I bake before I go to bed. Schlepping the baked goods and uncooked groceries acrossClevelandto my bus stop is always a task and sight to see, but I happily arrive atGardenValleya few hours before the students arrive to cook dinner and finish any last minute preparations.
The first students trickle in at5:30pm. They either play games or (most often) volunteer to set up the tables for tutoring and the tables for dinner. We eat our healthy dinner together. Dinner is when I’m most surprised by these students. In all of my years of working with youth, I’ve never encountered a group that loves spinach, carrots, and celery as much as this group. True, we need an official “Rancher” (a position of great honor) to make sure the students have salad in lieu of ranch soup and I can’t get them to touch beans and chocolate is a hard sell for some kids, but I most always send a kid home with the bag of leftover spinach!
We clean-up our meal and tutoring begins. The students are paired with HandsOn NEO volunteer tutors and begin to work through their Homework Help Notebooks. Working from front to back, the students learn about nutrition and healthy living during with their HandsOn Health Workbook. Every week, the students list what food they ate for breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner as well as one healthy thing they did that day. The meaning of our service hits home when week after week students write that dinner is the only substantial meal they had that day. So while I cannot underplay the value of the tutoring, knowing that the students will not go home hungry that night is the most meaningful element of our program. Knowing that I’m not only sending them home with positive, individual academic attention, but bellies full and (more often than not) arms full of leftovers, is what I’m most proud of.
Laura West
HandsOn Corps VISTA: HandsOn Northeast Ohio
