Monday, December 28, 2009

A Second Year of Service

Beth Leonard Hello Again! This is Beth with the Michigan Primary Care Association. In October 2009, I started my second year of service with Michigan’s AmeriCorps and its Member Council. I didn’t think twice about making the decision to do a second year of service; the experiences I’ve had since joining AmeriCorps have been exceptional!

Serving at a homeless and domestic violence shelter as a health advocate, the holiday season is an especially busy one. Many activities are planned for the children residents of the shelter, and it is so gratifying to spend this holiday time with them making crafts, visiting Santa Claus, sharing a meal, and giving gifts.

Families who have “adopted” a family in the shelter come by our office and drop off gifts they have purchased. One day, a mother and her three young children made two trips from their car up the stairs and into our office to drop off the wrapped presents. I believe this future crop of AmeriCorps members are being fostered in service already! We are very grateful for this outpouring of goodwill, and it’s nice to know our shelter families will have an exciting Christmas morning with gifts under the tree.

Our shelter counts on support from the community all year long, but the amount of goodwill definitely seems to increase around this time of the year. A local faith-based organization and high school group threw a holiday party last week. The high-schoolers have a “giving” tree, and they collected presents for each shelter child to be given a gift at the party. They also provided lots of entertainment: decorating sugar cookies, carnival-type games (with prizes and all!), and arts and crafts. The area churches have a group that also collects presents the children can pick out for their parents.

Again, I am so excited about my second year of service. At the end of the annual Michigan’s AmeriCorps Member Celebration – held this past November – First Gentleman Daniel Mulhern swore us in and asked us to take the AmeriCorps pledge.

I remember feeling so inspired when I left Member Celebration in 2008, and took the pledge very seriously. I experienced the same thing this year. It feels great to be a part of the larger national service movement, and it is hard to not be inspired by others around you are as passionate about national service as you are.

From connecting, interacting, and even collaborating with community leaders on service projects, presenting about AmeriCorps to civic groups, high school and college students, to doing a healthy nutrition craft with children of the shelter, all of these experiences have helped keep me motivated, inspired, and guided for the future. I have always been a big believer in that you can learn something from everyone and from every experience!

Having hope and faith in fellow citizens to volunteer and make a difference creates the great country we live in! We can make the world a better place if we all give a little bit of effort! Look for volunteer opportunities near you at www.mivolunteers.org or by calling 1-800-VOLUNTEER.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Cross-Stream: Invaluable to National Service

Matt Reaume Welcome back! My name is Matt Reaume and I am currently serving as an AmeriCorps*VISTA with the Michigan Community Service Commission (MCSC). This year, my service will primarily focus on expanding cross-stream collaboration between national service programs throughout the state of Michigan.

For those of you who may not be familiar with the jargon, “cross-stream” is simply a terms that refers to the different ways in which national service programs in Michigan can work together to pool information and resources to more effectively carry out their program’s mission.

As the new Cross-Stream*VISTA, I will work closely with an advisory team comprised of representatives from the MCSC, Corporation for National and Community Service, Michigan Office of Services to the Aging, and all Michigan national service programs including Senior Corps, Learn & Serve America, and AmeriCorps* State, National Direct, and National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) programs.

This cross-stream initiative is the result of a general statewide trend where community service organizations have become strained in the face of steadily increasing needs for service coupled with a consistent decline in funding and resources. These general trends have forced national service programs in Michigan to come together through collaboration and partnership opportunities to make the most effective use of time and money.

The position will challenge me. It will be difficult at times to see the results of my efforts. Often times in my years of working in the trades before beginning my service, I became used to seeing a “finished product” once my labors were complete. This gave me the luxury of standing back and admiring/critiquing my work.

While the cross-stream initiative may not provide tangible results instantly, I will be able to derive a world of satisfaction out of knowing that the infrastructure I am currently working to leave behind will continue to make cross-stream collaboration a sustainable trend in Michigan.

How could you collaborate – or form a “cross-stream” relationship – at your service site?

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

2010 Michigan Mentoring Month

Betsy My name is Betsy Knoll and I represent the 4-H Mentor Michigan Initiative. This initiative focuses on the expansion and strengthening of mentoring programs in targeted Michigan communities.  This year the project has enlisted 80 full-time AmeriCorps members statewide to serve with Michigan State University Extension (MSUE) 4-H staff and the other community-based youth mentoring programs to recruit 2,000 potential volunteers to serve as mentors. Members assist in training and matching 825 volunteers statewide to build the capacity of each community to establish one-to-one or small group mentoring programs.  As a result of these efforts nearly 1,650 low-income, at-risk, or underserved youth, age 5 to 19 years old, will participate in on-going mentoring relationships.

The host site where I am serving at is Journey 4-H Youth Mentoring of Ottawa County MSUE. The Journey 4-H Youth Mentoring program pairs youth in Ottawa County with positive adult role models in an effort to reduce the frequency and severity of delinquent behavior. The success of the program is in large part due to the strong partnership between Michigan State University Extension and 20th Circuit Court Family Division Juvenile Services. I am in my second year of service, and I have the privilege of serving with two other AmeriCorps members at MSUE, Barb Brow and Jeff Walker.

Currently, both in Ottawa County and statewide, mentoring programs are preparing for the 2010 Michigan Mentoring Month coming up in January. Michigan Mentoring Month is an opportunity for mentoring programs to raise awareness of the need for mentors. This is done in a variety of ways, such as service projects and recruitment presentations both on a local and state level. Some examples are Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service on January 18th, where mentoring programs are encouraged to plan a project for their mentors and mentees or encourage them to volunteer in their community. Also, Thank Your Mentor Day on January 21st is an opportunity to encourage mentees to show their mentors how much they’ve impacted their lives.

Michigan Mentoring Month also is a great opportunity for recognition of mentors and mentoring supporters. In Ottawa County, we are in the planning stages for our 4th Annual Magic of Mentoring Celebration. This activity is our way to say a big “thank you” to those people who make mentoring in Ottawa County possible. We have some great entertainment lined up for this year, as well as many mentors, mentees, and community partners that we are looking forward to honoring that evening.

Is your New Year’s resolution to volunteer? Maybe it could be! Find a mentoring program near you by visiting www.mentormichigan.org and clicking on “Become a Mentor.”

Monday, December 7, 2009

A new year of Michigan’s AmeriCorps!

Welcome back to the Michigan’s AmeriCorps Member Council Blog – my name is Cathy and I represent the Cherry Street Health Services Community HealthCorps team. Cherry Street Health Services (CSHS) is a group of 13 federally qualified community heath centers. The HealthCorps team is a national AmeriCorps program that is health focused and where each member has direct patient contact. There are members of my team at each of the 13 CSHS sites and some members serve with partnering programs. My host site is Project Access, a partnering program which recruits physicians (general practice and specialists) to donate services to qualifying low-income and uninsured people in need.

During the inaugural meeting of the Michigan’s AmeriCorps Member Council in late November, new people and fresh ideas were met with a warm reception. What a fabulous year this will be. There was amazing energy throughout the rather gray day we spent in Lansing, MI. It was a fun experience for me. I always enjoy meeting new people who are from different backgrounds.

This is what I discovered from the first member council meeting for the 2009-2010 Michigan’s AmeriCorps year: There’s a certain kind of power that can only be derived when you connect with others who share your ambitions. With all of us working in different programs across Michigan, we came together with different ideas of what impacting our community means. However, we all see that it takes leadership and planning to make a successful and long lasting impact. United by a common cause, we unfold a power to accomplish great things. What great things do you hope to accomplish during your term of service?