Good day everyone! I feel I should make an apology right from the start; the whole idea of informal writing truly frightens me, as I have never written anything to be read outside the context of the classroom. Okay, now that I've played Brutus to myself I feel like I can, and should, move forward.My name is Josh Meyers and I have the pleasure of serving with the AmeriCorps: Together We Prepare program that is a joint collaboration between Michigan’s AmeriCorps and The American Red Cross. Together We Prepare seeks to address community needs related to disaster preparedness, disaster response, and community education. Statewide, there are 25 members serving at nine different chapters. I serve at the Greater Grand Rapids Chapter of the American Red Cross along with seven other full-time AmeriCorps members. Each of those members serves a different critical community need via the American Red Cross of Greater Grand Rapids.
I serve as the Government Liaison, which means I provide a variety of services on a day-to-day basis ranging from negotiating and writing memorandum's of understanding between the American Red Cross of Greater Grand Rapids and our partner agencies, to helping to create and implement new programming. I will say the following at the risk of sounding horribly cliché; each and every day I find my self working to overcome a new challenge that, upon completion, will directly benefit others. The sense of intrinsic satisfaction I feel at the end of the day makes it truly easy for me to wake up the next morning at 6:15 a.m. to serve another day.
If you have continued to read to this point I must already have your unbridled and undivided attention; so since I have you, let me tell you about a program that I co-created/am co-creating with another AmeriCorps member from the Greater Grand Rapids Red Cross. The program is titled, A Safe Community Begins with You. The goal of A Safe Community Begins With You is to cultivate greater independence in the lives of individuals’ ages 15-25 with developmental disabilities by providing a series interactive classes focused on fostering independent living. A Safe Community Begins with You is a product of a partnership between the Grand Rapids Fire Department, The Arc of Kent County, and the American Red Cross of Greater Grand Rapids. These classes cover topics such as, Fire Safety, Basic Aid Training, and Independent Living. As an effect, A Safe Community Begins With You aims to mirror the paradigm shift within state funded public education that focuses on taking individuals with developmental disabilities from group homes and placing them within the overarching community as productive members of society. Our first class, focused on fire safety, kicked off last month and went over better than we could have imagined. It was amazing to see the result of hours of planning go off without a “hitch”. We were able to meet a critical need within our community and enjoy every minute of it.
As everyone one else seems to be ending their posts with a thought provoking question; I will too (and to answer the question you all are asking inside of your inner-dialogues, yes I would jump off the bridge). I’d like to leave you by posing to you my own question, how much change could you affect in yourself and your community by giving of yourself one year of community service?
4 comments:
Hi Josh,
For someone who's never done informal writing, you did a great job! It sounds like you are doing some really awesome things in Grand Rapids. As a co-chapter leader of the GR AmeriCorps alums, if you are ever looking for parters... we are always looking for service projects to join! :-) Your post asked a good question ... how much change could you affect in yourself and in your community in a year? I'll be the first to stand up and say that a year of service can really add direction and dimension to one's life. However, service is absolutely what you make of it -- if you throw yourself in and dedicate 110%, you will receive those benefits back tenfold. As I tell the members in the AmeriCorps program I run, we can provide you with the tools for an awesome experience, but it's up to you how you choose to use them. Just some food for thought this week! Thanks for the posting.
First, I want to wish you the best of success with your program, A Safe Community Begins with You. Sounds like things are rolling along well with the partners already created. Second, my sister, who is a teacher in the Grand Rapids area, had AmeriCorps members from your site come to do presentations to her students. She spoke to me about how pleased she was with this. After you complete your year of service you can answer your own question with the knowledge of how much change you have accomplished! Keep up the change! :)
Thank you for the kind words of encouragement! Molly, if you give me a email address I can put you in contact with our volunteer and diversity coordinator. He would have a much better idea of what is going on around the chapter in terms of one time service projects.
With that said, if you have any volunteers interested negotiating direct billing agreements with hotels I can always use a good man/woman.
Lisa,
I will pass along the good news to the two girls who go out and present at local schools, I am sure that they will be happy to hear it!
Hi Josh,
I'm an AmeriCoprs*VISTA serving in Tucson, AZ. My role is to coordinate the disaster preparedness efforts at the Volunteer Center of Southern Arizona -- which is sort of a nebulous task. I do everything from coordinate regional VOAD meetings to run a community volunteer group (or try to -- I'm just getting it started with the first few trainings we're trying to offer) to work with local agencies that serve special needs populations to help them integrate preparedness education into their offerings.
I'm curious about your work with young adults -- where do you get your students/paticipants/etc? Email me at aknight@volunteersoaz.org, if you want to chat about it.
Thanks for posting!
Amy
Post a Comment