It's a Detroit Thing: Inspiring Change in the Motor City

826michigan is a non profit organization that provides free writing and tutoring programs to students 6-18.  Our organization is dedicated to improving students creative and expository writing skills, and working with teachers helping them inspire their students to write.  We offer multiple in-school programs as well as after school writing labs and workshops.  As you have read and heard from other VISTA's our organization is National and there are eight different chapters.  826michigan operates very similarly to the other chapters, but our situation, and my role within, is very unique.  Our center is located in downtown Ann Arbor, but our programs reach Ypsilanti and Detroit as well.  Our hope as an organization is to open a new space in Detroit sometime within the next year or two, dependent on funding.  My job specifically, is to build our capacity in Detroit, in order to gain the support for our new center.  Volunteer recruitment is the most crucial aspect of this capacity building.  It's been very interesting to observe, through my work, the dynamics of the organization during the first couple months of my service.  

826 is centrally located, with a really fantastic space, in downtown Ann Arbor.  They have tremendous relationships with community businesses, non-profits, and of course the local universities: the University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University.  It is amazing to see the clout that 826michigan has in in the area because of these relationships.  Ann Arbor is a also a very unique city in Michigan.  I'm not sure about the statistics but in terms of per capita, but I'm quite sure Ann Arbor is the most educated city in Michigan.  It is also a very literary city.   Bookshops and reading/writing/publishing organizations line the streets and folks are really into books.  One of the first weeks of my service I worked the 826 table at Ann Arbor's book festival.  There were hundreds of people who attended this event and it was massively successful.  We talked to people about our organizations programs and it was surprising to hear how many people had heard of and interacted with 826 before.  This is not

the case in Detroit.  We have been running programs in Detroit for only a year or so, so we haven't had the time that we've had in AA.  Yet, talking to folks around the city nobody has heard of 826.  This is really something I've been doing and excited to continue to do; talk to people about what 826 does and get them excited about our programs, and of course hopefully gain their support as a volunteer.  As I have said, it is interesting to understand the different relationships 826 has with the different communities, but it is also fascinating to understand the different identities of the communities and how to approach the different living conditions.  Like I also said, Ann Arbor is extremely literate, Detroit is not.  We've heard about the 47% illiteracy rate in Detroit and while it might not be entirely true it is useful and prevalent.  There is also a different mindset and history of Detroit.  Our organization in Ann Arbor has developed a creative identity that thrives on fun and being goofy and playful.  There is a correlation between this identity and the identity of Ann Arbor as a city.  Detroit has a different identity.  It has been an industrial center for a long long time and has a blue collar attitude.  It of course is also plagued by decay, abandoned buildings, and theft.  There is a different approach needed to connect to people in Detroit.  The attitude of the city is much less playful and goofy, but of course there is creativity everywhere you look, and while there are differences that are fascinating there are similarities that are endless.  We are focusing our efforts in Midtown Detroit, which is the cultural center of the city and also the home of Wayne State University.  The relationships in Ann Arbor with the local universities has been huge to development, and similarly we have found the most success in Detroit reaching out to college students.  This has been a fun experience especially since I've recently started a graduate program at Wayne.  I've been talking to basically every student organization about 826 and have started talking to students in classes, specifically english and creative writing courses.  This has been successful and we have found a couple of volunteers, but there is much hard work left ahead and we face many challenges.  I love the possibilities surrounding this position and am really excited to work hard and develop an organizations capacity from the ground up and be a part of the beginning of this project.  It will be a great experience!

As far as my experience with our programs, it has been limited in Detroit.  Our first wave of programs actually starts next week in Detroit and we have been preparing for this during the past couple of months.  Yet, during this time I've been able to work with the programs we have started in Ann Arbor, which have only just recently begun.  We have a program called the "Young Author's Book Project," in which we partner with a high school and work with a group of students as they work on a specific writing project throughout the semester.  This year the students are writing bedtime stories intended for first and second grade readers.  At the end of the project the students get their stories published in a hardcover book with illustrations from Ann Arbor artists.  This has been an incredible program in the past, and I was astounded by how well it is going this year.  The students I worked with have incredible ideas and the stories seem like they are going to be really excellent.  Most importantly, they are excited about the project and it clearly is giving them a sense of empowerment that they may never have experienced before.  This may be one of the most successful programs we have. but this feeling of empowerment is a microcosm of what our organization has accomplished and is striving to develop.  It is such a great thing for the students and the volunteers and I'm happy to be a part of it, and happy to be able to share the experiences with others hoping to inspire them to get involved.

-Chris Brudzynski

A Library to Sustain a Future
Millie Symns

           

A month into being a VISTA: so much to learn, so much to do. First day on site, it was time to do more training and to learn my role specifically for New York Cares. I got to learn the ins-and-outs about the organization, including the culture of the office, and understanding the complicated systems of communication and data tracking that I was not expecting (Salesforce is definitely a force to be reckoned with!). Although I was unsure about many things, there was still work I needed to get started on in the coming weeks that was passed down to me from the previous VISTA.

            I am one of three VISTAs (there will be four in November) in the School Success Initiative Program at New York Cares. Public elementary and middle schools apply to be in the program to be provided supplemental volunteer programs to go along with their school curriculum or community enrichment. I have three assigned schools to me that are all located in Brooklyn, NY.

            While in the works of gaining an understanding on the neighborhood that I will be working in for the year, my supervisor forwarded an email about an on-going program that was happening in one of my assigned schools. The program is called “Revitalize the School Library at PS 636 K.” This program started because the after-school teacher (staff member for a year from another nonprofit) noticed that the school’s library was very rundown, not in use, and very much outdated. She took it upon herself to get the school library back into functioning order. With the help of the previous VISTA, at the end of VISTA’s term of service, they created a program to happen during the summer and into the beginning of the next school year.

            When I was still doing my on-site training, I had the opportunity to volunteer at the school on that particular project. A group of over 10 volunteers were cleaning bookshelves, dusting off books, and sorting/organizing thousands of books into various categories. It was amazing to see such work and dedication to do something. When I got to meet the after school teacher, she explained to me that she would be doing a Kick-starter campaign to raise $4,500 to buy the supplies such as new books and paint for the walls and bookshelves. When she forwarded me the campaign, I wondered if there was anything that New York Cares could do to help. I forwarded the Kickstarter campaign to our Community Partners Relations department and that started an email chain all the way to Corporate Relations. I ended up getting news that a corporate sponsor of New York Cares wants to help sponsor the project. Due to me using the resources I had available, I was able to get help get the Kickstarter campaign fully-funded! The organization, HealthCor, will be presenting the check to the school (over $3,000) and will have various things dedicated to them in the school’s library because of their generous donation. Without New York Cares to be a connection and partner to the school, they probably would have never been able to achieve their goal in time. Hopefully by next year the school will be able to have a library again.  

WELCOME

2014-2015 COHORT

The goal of the Corps18 program is to reduce absenteeism and improve academic achievement.

VISTA Corps18 Programs

•The Cultural and Academic Literacy based programs will be designed to engage students, parents, community and corporate volunteers in programs that academic support, soft skills development, and introductions to financial and digital literacy.

•The Health and Wellness based programs will be designed to engage students, parents, community members and corporate volunteers in initiatives and programs that promote healthy living choices, healthy and stimulating learning environments and creating safer and/or reducing unsafe paths to and from schools. 

•STEM based programs will be designed to introduce and deepen the awareness of students, families and communities of the incredible opportunities for exploration in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

•P.L.A.Y programs will be designed to engage students in programs and initiatives that promote youth leadership and help youth understand the positive benefits of active play and exercise.