Downriver CARES Cares

How is it going? My name is Gabriel Thurin and I am serving my year of service with the Downriver CARES AmeriCorps program. Downriver CARES (which stands for Community, Action, Resources, Enrichment, and Service) is a fairly large AmeriCorps program with around 63 current members. The majority of the group is serving out of The Guidance Center, which is a human services agency that offers adults, youth, and family services. Additionally, Downriver CARES also places a number of its AmeriCorps members in various other organizations in Southeast Michigan, such as: United Way, Starfish Family Services, and City of Wayne, Oakland Child Care Council, Wayne Metro Community Action Agency, Oakland Family Services, and Macomb Family Services. 

As one would suspect, the Downriver CARES AmeriCorps members serve a vast range of activities – in educational and tutoring capacities, mentoring programs, juvenile resource coordination, workforce development, prevention services, homeless outreach, youth and adult resource coordination, mental health services, literacy initiatives, and many more. 

One of the more unique aspects of the Downriver CARES AmeriCorps program is that every Friday all of the 63 AmeriCorps members get together and conduct a service project out in the community or with another nonprofit/AmeriCorps program. In previous Friday Service events, the group has served with Motor City Blight Busters, Gleaners, Habitat for Humanity, and a number of other organizations in Southeast Michigan.
The Downriver CARES AmeriCorps program has also been granted the opportunity to host AmeriCorps Week projects for the past four years, bringing the various AmeriCorps programs serving Wayne County communities together through a large service project. Last year for AmeriCorps Week, Downriver CARES (with the help of other AmeriCorps programs and local community members) were able to create a community garden in the city of River Rouge. This year we will be creating another community garden at Bunche Academy in the City of Ecorse.

For my year of service I am serving as a Mentor Coordinator for The Guidance Center’s mentoring program. Our mentoring program is a group mentoring program and is held at one of The Guidance Center facilities. Currently we offer mentoring three days a week. Because this is a group mentoring program, each mentor is typically matched with two or three mentees. My specific role as Mentor Coordinator is to recruit, train, and give guidance/support to all of the mentors in our program. For the month of January, we conducted our Mobile Mentor Challenge with goal of recruiting 50 new mentors in 30 days. Even though we did not reach the initial goal, the event was still a huge success because we were able to recruit several excited and motivated adults that will surely be a positive role model in our youths’ lives. 

Getting the opportunity to serve along side with the Downriver CARES AmeriCorps members has definitely been the highlight of the past year. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I would be excited to come to The Guidance Center from nine to five. But it has been a blast serving with such a fun, energetic, and committed group.
Please check out our facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/downriver.cares.