Diversity to me means....

Thanks Sam Fontaine from United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County for telling us what Diversity means to you!

Diversity is the willingness to approach others with empathy and respect, regardless of who they are or what they look like. Diversity accepts the fact that every individual is different in a plethora of ways. We have different skin color, religious beliefs, socioeconomic class, hair color, political affiliation, and personality to name just a few of the many distinctions we have as human beings. These really just graze the surface. We should celebrate our differences by understanding that these differences are omnipresent and neutral. There should be no negative connotation in our thoughts, expel the stereotypes that categorize us based on our differences. Instead, think about the things that make us common and the same. We all have feelings, we all face struggles. Diversity is accepting these similarities and not allowing our negative conditioning to supersede the positive. We merely need to treat others fairly; the golden rule truly applies here.

How do I celebrate it?

I “celebrate” diversity by engaging honestly with other human beings. Having conversations based on mutual respect and empathy. We need to change our mindset to: “I may be different from you but I understand your struggles, I feel your pain.”  The best way to celebrate diversity is by practicing it, constantly, with everyone you meet.

In my VISTA year I have worked with people from many walks of life, all with different needs and interests. Meeting those needs has been a challenge. A challenge that I have overcome by approaching them with respect. Particularly, I work with a lot of people who have different religious beliefs than me. By putting those differences aside, I have been able to find common ground with them and we have built mutually beneficial relationships from there.

Sam is the Community Engagement Coordinator for Community School Initiative at Enka Middle School. 

Keep your stories coming!

Make your Mark on Hunger!

Did you know that 16 million kids in America aren't getting the food they need?

This spring, from March 15--April 30, generationOn is challenging kids and teens to Make Their Mark on Hunger through meaningful hands-on service in their communities. For each youth engaged in service ConAgra will donate a meal to Feeding America, up to 10,000 meals. The campaign is brought to you by generationOn with the generous support of presenting sponsor ConAgra Foods Foundation with additional support from the National Turkey Federation and C&S Wholesale Grocers.

By signing up you will receive access to project guides, media tools, reflection activities and lesson plans, all designed to support you in learning about, and taking action to address the issue of child hunger in the US. Sign up here!

By signing up, you will receive access to project guides, media tools, reflection activities, and lesson plans, all designed to support youth in learning about, and taking action to address, the issue of child hunger in the US.

NOMINATE A YOUNG HERO FOR A $5,000 BARRON PRIZE!

 The Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes invites nominations for its 2015 awards. The Barron Prize celebrates inspiring, public-spirited young people ages 8 to 18 who have made a significant positive difference to people and our environment. Each year, fifteen winners each receive a $5,000 cash award to support their service work or higher education. 

Annual nomination deadline is April 15. For more information and to access our online application, visit www.barronprize.org

Thanks Alexandra, for your awesome February Blog!

Topic: What does diversity mean to you and how are you celebrating it this month?

Enka Middle School is a diverse community, but at first glance, it may not appear that way.  Diversity goes beyond just the notable physical appearances and differences and language variations. Enka’s 1000 students come from diverse backgrounds that are almost invisible at first glance. A lot of Middle School students are not open about their lives outside of school and so they go unnoticed. The focus is often on things the students have in common: Common Core standards, Math, Language Arts, and EOG scores. But in order for Middle Schoolers to be successful in academics, their diverse backgrounds need to be taken into account.

A natural example of diversity in the Enka-Candler community is the Hispanic and Russian neighborhoods. We offer a variety of parent and family programs in the evening at Enka Middle School. So far we’ve held two computer literacy nights, three healthy living nights, and a family game night. Diversity comes up the most when we’re talking about literacy. If our literacy nights focus solely on the English language, we are missing a crucial part of the community. This is one of those examples where it is crucial to take diversity into account. But like I mentioned earlier, language variations are a more noticeable form of diversity.

My main work is planning and implementing after-school enrichment for students. Because we’re trying to reach a variety of students, diversity is something we need to take into account. What do students who come from different communities need? What do they want? I think after-school clubs are a good way to acknowledge the diversity of students because there are not federal or national standards they need to adhere too. During the after-school hours, students have more freedom to explore their diverse interests.

In terms of celebrating diversity, I think it’s important for students to understand and respect the differences between themselves and their classmates. Celebrating diversity should be a part of everyday life. It’s great to talk about diversity at a national and global level but it is also important to talk about local diversity and the differences students experience in their community and their neighborhoods.

Alexandra is a VISTA serving at United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County. She is the Student Success Coordinator for the Community school Initiative at Enka Middle school. 

Keep up the great work!

MLK Day of Service for Alyssa and Amanda at 826 Valencia!

Alyssa, Volunteer Engagement Assistant: We celebrated our Day of Service on Tuesday, January 20th  by supporting two very unique 826 Valencia programs — the Storytelling and Bookmaking Field Trip Program and After-School Tutoring at Buena Vista Horace Mann Elementary School (BVHM).

Four days a week, 826 Valencia welcomes a class of up to thirty-five students for a morning of high-energy learning. Class visits are prioritized for classes in San Francisco public schools, specifically schools with an Academic Performance Index (API)  score of less than 800 as well as an above average of a free reduced lunch rate.

During our Day of Service, a group of twenty-two eager-to-write second graders from Marshall Elementary School (with an API score of 783 and a free reduced lunch rate of 80.9%)  came to 826 Valencia for a Storytelling and Bookmaking Field Trip. The students were charged with the task of writing an original story as a group with the help of 826 volunteers. We helped students participate in a round-table discussion to generate their own characters, setting, and plot points. In this field trip, students crafted a story about an animated hash brown who dreamed of becoming a race car driver. His worst fear? Teeth! The students collectively leave the story at a cliffhanger and, with one-on one help from volunteers, write their own individual endings. As the students furiously write their endings, a professional artist volunteer illustrates the story.

When the students complete their endings, all student writing is sent to our fictional in-house grouchy editor, Mr. Blue (a volunteer who patiently hides in our attic and periodically shouts down at the students, demanding original writing). Mr. Blue calls upon each student and reads their ending aloud, praising them for their hard work and original writing. Mr. Blue approves all student work by marking it with an official 826 stamp and sends the writing down to be “published” and bound by volunteers.

Students leave 826 with a copy of their very own self-published book filled with illustrations, and complete with an “About the Author page”. This field trip teaches students about collaboration, self-editing, the bookmaking process, and elements of successful storytelling. It also teaches volunteers to encourage uniqueness and individuality by giving praise to a quality of work that stands out from the rest.

Amanda, Development Assistant: In the afternoon, we supported the after-school program at Buena Vista Horace Mann (BVHM), a Spanish bilingual K-8 school in San Francisco’s Mission District. At BVHM, we work with twenty 3^rd graders, twenty 4^th graders, and twenty 5^th graders who are selected to participate in the program based on their school performance (below grade-level proficiency and English as a second language). Every day, these students spend one hour with us deepening their skills and comfort around reading and writing, and one hour with tutors from the school working on their homework.

On our Day of Service, the 5th graders were working on developing their persuasive writing skills. At 826, we firmly believe that writing is best taught within a meaningful context, so the students were tasked with convincing us that they deserved a truly meaningful honor. The prize? One that any San Franciscan would jump at: the chance to interview hometown heroes, the San Francisco Giants, at their annual Press Day, an event attended by dozens of professional journalists and sports writers. The three students who wrote the most compelling arguments for why they should chosen to interview a Giants player would be selected to for the opportunity. As you might imagine, this generated lots of excitement and fierce competition for one of the top spots.

To help students get warmed up for the assignment, we talked about ways they use persuasion in their everyday lives. For example, if they wanted to go to the movies with their friends, but their mom wanted them to help with chores, how would they convince her to let them go out instead? We came to the conclusion that if they offered compelling evidence for why they ought to be allowed to go to the movies (“The movie might be educational, and I might learn something!”) rather than just saying because, their moms would be more likely to let them off the hook for chores.

Next, using an idea web to help organize our thoughts, we worked with the students to help them brainstorm reasons they should be selected to interview the Giants. Their arguments ranged from pretty persuasive to pretty out there, and many students showed amazing insight about their own strengths and skills. A highlight: one student wrote that she would make a good interviewer because she wasn’t shy and wouldn’t be afraid to ask the players questions. Our goal for the day was simply to help students come up with ideas to include in their letters. Over following days, students worked on organizing those ideas, crafting their arguments, and honing them to perfection.

Reflection: Dipping into programs every once in a while is especially important for us as administrative staff working in volunteer engagement and fundraising because it keeps us in touch with the work at the heart of our organization. Spending time helping in programs helps us to understand how programs are structured, what program goals are, and how students think and feel and respond to the curriculum we offer. This first-hand experience better equips us to explain the strengths of our various programs to prospective funders and provides us with valuable anecdotal evidence to add flavor to proposals. It also provides us with the opportunity to view things from the volunteer perspective, which can help us to evaluate the effectiveness of our volunteer training and support efforts and to match volunteers with programs that fit their skills and interests.

                       
Do you know a young person between the ages of 5 and 18 who has done remarkable community service in the past 12 months?

The Hasbro Community Action Hero Award recognizes outstanding youth volunteers who show that you are never to young to make a difference in your local and global community. Hasbro Children's Fund and generationOn will celebrate 10 young people between the ages of 5 and 18 for their extraordinary community service and volunteer activities at a special recognition event in Los Angee, award each winner $1,000 education scholarship and a $500 grant to their selected non-profit.

A Hasbro Community Action Hero is a young person who makes an extraordinary mark on the world through service. The nominee's achievements must demonstrate one or more of the following characteristics:

Outstanding service to one's local, national, or global community

Extraordinary effort in creating innovative solutions to community needs

Leadership of an exceptional service or advocacy activity.

Read about eligibility for Hasbro Community Action Heroes and nominate a young person here!

The generationOn team MLK Day of Service project at PS/MS 57

January 15, 2015 would have been Martin Luther King's 86th birthday. To help celebrate the civil rights activist's birthday and Martin Luther King, Jr. National Day of Service, the generationOn team, together with Target, hosted a day of service for the students of PS/MS 57 James Weldon Johnson Leadership Academy in NYC.

Over 100 Target volunteers helped 6th, 7th and 8th graders rotate through service projects ranging from making homemade tambourines for a special needs preschool music program; to packing healthy soup kits for food insecure families; to making peace bracelets spreading Dr. King's message of tolerance. There was even a station where kids could pose for an Instagram to honor Dr. King's birthday and think about how he would have used the platform to help spread his message of hope. 

After rotating through the various service stations, the students of MS 57 were tasked with writing and decorating messages of hope as a reflection activity. Here you can see one of the squares with the quote "We must learn to live together as brothers of perish as fools." ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. These squares were ultimately stiched together, making a quilt that will hang in the school. 

During the event, students were asked what MLK Day of Service means to them and why it's important to honor his legacy with service. Here are a few of the responses:

"It's important because we're showing our love for him and thanking him for standing up for us." - Ashley

"He did something no one else did and represented democracy." - Janna

"It's important because we should team up together and not argue about things." - James

   

                       FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER

Di-ver-si-ty // the inclusion of individuals representing more than one national origin, color, religion, socioeconomic stratum, and sexual orientation.

The time is now to start planning for Read Across America/Dr. Seuss Day on March 2, 2015.  Black History Month is the perfect time to speak about Diversity and literacy in schools as well as at your sites.  For February’s blog tell us what diversity means to you and how you’re celebrating it this month.

Submit your blogs Friday, February 27^th!

Grants and Opportunities

Calling all Writers!

The grassroots organization, We Need Diverse Books (“WNDB”) was created to address the lack of diverse, non-majority narratives in children’s literature. Their mission is to promote or amplify diversification efforts and increase visibility for diverse books and authors, with a goal of empowering a wide range of readers in the proceess. We Need Diverse Books Short Story Contest is looking for unpublished authors of all backgrounds. Know someone at your site that would be interested?.Pass it along It’s free to enter!

Points of Light and First Book are partnering to promote literacy in America. Your organization and partners can get involved. 

Access free and Reduced Price Books - First Book is a nonprofit social enterprise that distributes tens of millions of new books and educational resources every year to educators and program leaders serving children in need nationwide. Through the Points of Light and HandsOn Network partnership with First Book, you can sign up now to start accessing free and low-cost brand new books for students in your programs. For more information, contact First Book at 866.READ.NOW or help@firstbook.org. 

Thanks for reading all that. Here is a mental break:

Check out these free web series:

1    The Peculiar Kind: A Web Series & Doc, LGBT Homeless Youth

2   East Willy B:  A comedic  webseries on the gentrification of Latinos in New York City

You’re almost done, don’t stop reading!

 Reminders, Reminders, REMINDERS!

     

 Don’t forget: generationOn is looking for The Hasbro Community Action Hero Awardees    Nominate someone you know today!  Deadline: February 13, 2015 5 p.m.

  

What do YOU want in a newsletter? Email abuckner@generationon.com  to tell me what you  think is missing or should be added!

Hands On Asheville-Buncombe

What is a successful VISTA year?

During my VISTA year I would define success as making the smallest change in a child’s life. This is whether I can help them learn how to deal with their emotions; for example, when they get mad I teach them other methods to cope with their anger rather than lashing out at teachers or classmates. Success in a school environment is very much open; kids are constantly learning weather it is from teachers, school aides or even friends.
 Success to me is goal related set by others or myself. If I achieve that goal then I have been successful, which I measure on the difficulty and effort in achieving that goal. The reaction from children when they see me as a mentor and not someone who is there to add on to their school load, to me success is the students taking what I have taught them and implementing it in their everyday routine.
The skill sets/ assets I have that will help me and have already helped me during my VISTA year all have either been obtained from my own personal experiences or I have learned through others. One of the assets I bring to the table is always being adaptable and managing change, in a school environment it is very difficult sometimes to set a plan that will be followed step by step. It comes in handy to always have a backup in case my original plan will not work out, doing so without it flustering me is another skill that I have learned over the years. I also use my smile, as corny as that may seem these kids are constantly being told what to do and how to behave and a simple smile is truly a game changer with these kids. I have seen a child go from sad and sitting in the corner to happy and joining his table to play with friends all because I was able to approach him with a smile and make him laugh. Kids are always teaching you things I make sure that I have an open mind with any activity I do because I never know when one of them will surprise me with information I have never had before.

Tuqa Youssef, Promise Team Sunset Park

Success as a VISTA

A very important aspect of Student Academic success is the school atmosphere. Is the school welcoming and viewed as a safe space? Do students want to come to school? These are questions that I pondered when I arrived at Cesar Chavez Learning Academies.

In honor of Suicide Prevention Week (September 15th - 19th) the other VISTA members and I decided to launch a school-wide awareness event. We talked with teachers, students, and advertised through announcements and posters. During lunch we set up a resource table for students to receive information on suicide prevention. Students that visited the table also had the opportunity to enter a drawing for a chance to win a Target gift card. We also allowed students to write suggestions for programs / issues at CCLA. We played empowering ‘hip’ music and gave away candy.

 

This event was a great way for us to introduce ourselves to CCLA students and to get a good idea of the wants and needs they have. As a result of this event a teacher asked us to collaborate with her to create a lesson plan on Suicide Prevention. This lesson plan was to a success and yet another teacher reached out to us to join their class to speak about the importance of school involvement and resources we provide for the students.

 

I love how one event has really opened the door for us to get to know teachers and students. I look forward to more fun lunch events to interact with students and staff.

-Brittany Patterson, Youth Policy Institute

College Kick-off

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.

Photos from HandsOn NE Ohio!

 

 

                                 

 

 

 

 

                           

       

               

 

My Year of Service

 Krysel Walasik serving at South Bay Community Services

"We are supposed to leave this “mark” on our communities and look back and see the difference we have made, but the thing that has changed most is me."

When I first heard about AmeriCorps, I was told it was a chance to give back to my community and make a difference in the lives of people who are less fortunate. When I started serving at Chula Vista, I had high hopes that I would make a strong impact and build sustainable programs that would change people’s lives in a grand way. AmeriCorps introduces you to your year of service as if it will be the most influential and impactful year of your life; I don't think they set you up to fail, I think they try to build you up as much as possible so you can have the confidence to make some, however small, influences. As the year has come and gone, I am reflecting on my time in Chula Vista and the “grand” impact my work has made on the community. I have developed programs and created strong foundations for sustainability, but these programs are not what I think of most when I reflect on my year. We are supposed to leave this “mark” on our communities and look back and see the difference we have made, but the thing that has changed most is me.

When I reflect on my year of service, I think about the smiling faces of the students, the understanding in parents’ eyes, and the loving hearts in the community. I have come to learn so many things from the people that I have met this year, and I can only hope that they have learned something from me. I have made life long bonds with new friends and have gathered so much knowledge from those around me. The students have reminded me how simple and amazing life is, through their constant curiosity and considerable amounts of energy. The parents have shown me what it means to work hard, while also being a mentor and role model for their children. The community members have taught me what it means to give back and care for others, despite the fact that there may be no direct benefit. My parent and community engagement team has shown me what unconditional love of others is, what it means to bend over backwards for a complete stranger, how hard work can make a difference, and most importantly that a team must work together to produce change.

            When I reflect on my year, I do not think of the countless hours spent creating a sustainable PTA or the headache that stemmed from building a seamless School Pantry program for next year. I think of how I became part of a new community and how I have grown from every person I have met. I may not have changed a low income community with any “grand” programs or transformed it magically into a flourishing area, but I have seen the smiles on people’s faces, the small change in their eyes, and have met the individuals, my co-workers, who will continue working to make Chula Vista a great community for years to come. I am thankful every day for the decision I made to become an AmeriCorps member, it has allowed me to change and grow in an unforgettable way.



"The community members have taught me what it means to give back and care for others, despite the fact that there may be no direct benefit."