Michigan’s AmeriCorps Member Council – Posting #32

 Hi, this is Christy Fieber again from Volunteer Muskegon's AmeriCorps.  

I was recently serving in a local high school’s after-school program.  Since the school year ended, I am now serving in the agency through which the program was facilitated.  Since being here, I have created a workshop for youth focused on bullying and gender differences.  The workshop discusses how, at as early as age two, children are able to recognize “gender specific toys.”  For girls, they are over-sexualized dolls that teach young girls how they should look in order to be accepted.  For boys, it is “action figures” that teach masculinity, power, and anger.  We discuss how these types of toys teach children they should fit a very specific role, and if they do not fit it, they don’t belong.  This may seem trivial or irrelevant to youth, but in fact, studies have shown that we hold onto those images into adulthood.  

While administering the workshop, a 13-year-old boy said if he found his friend playing with a Barbie Doll, then “he would catch the gay.”  I was absolutely mystified by the comment!  The rest of the group followed with many concurring comments.  They shouted how they would make fun of that boy, they would call him a “sissy,” a “pansy,” “gay,” and many more that are perhaps just as offensive to women as they are to young boys.  

Throughout the five-week workshop, we also discussed how much influence the media has on these stereotypes.  They reinforce the role of women as sex objects, being nurturing, and having the burden in these times of not only taking care of the house and kids, but now a modern woman is also responsible for holding down a nine to five job.  The students discussed how if their fathers were the ones to grocery shop or vacuum, then they would no longer see him as a “man.”  These types of notions may seem archaic, but indeed they still exist.  They are the main force behind bullying and harassment among our youth.  

It is the goal of this workshop to address the problem in hopes a solution will follow - or at the least, we will begin to modify our behavior in recognition of its cause.  After facilitating this workshop many times, I now realize this is a goal of life for youth and adults alike.  

Michigan’s AmeriCorps Member Council – Posting #31

Welcome back, this is Christine Sisung from the 4-H Mentor Michigan Initiative. I just had the opportunity to spend this past weekend at the 4-H Mentoring Weekend in Tustin, Michigan. While all my body wanted to do was fall asleep in my bed for at least the next 12 hours, my mind had a very different idea. It was still abuzz with all the fun and excitement I witnessed different mentoring matches and AmeriCorps members from the 4-H Mentor Michigan Initiative have over the past three days. Highlights included watching everyone throwing red and green Jell-O at each other during the Jell-O wars, mentees and mentors showing off various talents during the talent show, and witnessing matches complete the Amazing Mentoring Challenge. The words amazing, great, fun, unforgettable, and thanks for the memories keep popping into my head. One of my personal highlights from the weekend was seeing different mentees really open up to everyone over the weekend.

The same thing can be said about an AmeriCorps term of service. We each come into the year inside our shell, not really knowing what to expect and then coming out of our year or two with a wide-open shell. For example, when I started my service in January 2008, AmeriCorps service was something that sounded like a good way to find more job experience and give back to the community I grew up in. Now, as I am rounding out my second year, I have a new perspective on life and new ideas of where I want to go. Through spending nearly two years serving my community, I have come to realize that while I want to work with children, being a classroom teacher is not for me. Instead, I want to do something that is going to support youth outside of school and help them realize their potential. This past weekend I witnessed exactly how two mentees involved in my program have started to realize their potential.

When both of the mentees got involved in the program it was like pulling teeth to get them to try a new activity with their mentor. This past weekend was all about trying new things for them. For example, one of the mentees kept saying she didn’t want to try the Jell-O war when we got to the field to start. So she and I made a deal that she would try it for five minutes and if she wasn’t having fun she could come stand by me on the sidelines. She never joined me on the sidelines and the Jell-O war ended up being her favorite session.

Just as my mind is filled with excitement from the weekend, everyone else who attended is also thinking about the amazing, fun, unforgettable things that occurred. The same thing can be said for my year of service. It has been an unforgettable year and a half so far and I can’t wait to see the things the AmeriCorps members who follow me will do. The foundation is set and now the sky is the limit for them, just as it was for me when I started in 2008. As each member packs up to leave our year we may be physically tired, just as matches were leaving mentoring weekend, but our mind is full from the excitement we experienced and the things we helped accomplish.

Michigan’s AmeriCorps Member Council – Posting #30

Greetings and salutations! Yasmine here and I am a Superior AmeriCorps member living in Houghton, Michigan – also known as the Gateway to the Keweenaw, or two miles past the End of the Earth (as a favorite postcard once noted). This is my first blog entry, but as I have signed up for a second year of AmeriCorps, I hope it will not be my last.  I cannot believe it has almost been a year of service, but with reminders on completing my exit package, reality about what has been accomplished has begun to set in.  

Education is Superior AmeriCorps’ primary focus and encompasses seven counties in the Upper Peninsula. We have 35 full-time members that aim to meet the motto of the program: "Serving to strengthen communities through youth education, volunteer recruitment, and the promotion of community service.” Superior AmeriCorps members’ positive outreach and influence permeates throughout our local centers – from the toddlers in the preschools we serve, to the at-risk youth in alternative education programs, and the elderly helped by nonprofit agencies like Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly.

My site is B.R.I.D.G.E. High school which stands for Becoming Responsible Individuals Dedicated to the Goals of Education. It is an alternative high school with an average of 50 students throughout the year. Telling people I volunteer with the B.R.I.D.G.E kids is sometimes met with raised eyebrows and preconceived notions about what being an “alternative” student means. I challenge myself to leave the person with the consideration that “alternative” does not necessarily mean “problem child” and to instead associate “alternative” with words like “creative” or “thinking outside the box.” 

At the beginning of the year I started an after-school community service program to encourage B.R.I.D.G.E. students to give back to their community. The Copper Country Humane Society, Michigan Department of Transportation’s Adopt-A-Highway Program, Hancock’s Downtown Business Association, and various nursing homes in the Houghton County area are just a few of the community members that have benefited from students’ time. Now, with the school year coming to an end, B.R.I.D.G.E. students have given a  combined total of over 600 hours of their time.

Graduation was last month and I am not ashamed to admit I shed a couple of tears as I saw our graduates walking down the aisle to “Pomp and Circumstance.” For me, an entire year of service culminated in one moment – when one of the graduates approached me, handed me a single rose, and said she wouldn’t have graduated if it wasn’t for all the time I had spent helping her with her courses.  

As we are all coming to the end of our terms of service, I wonder, what moment stands out for you? 

Michigan’s AmeriCorps Member Council – Posting #29

Hello! My name is LaShauna Horton and I serve with the Community Health Corps, which is a National Direct AmeriCorps program in Grand Rapids. A couple months ago, another member and I had the opportunity to help with Ferris State University’s Eye-DOC Camp. The primary intention of the camp was to encourage minority students to become interested in college and, specifically, their School of Optometry.

Ferris State called on the AmeriCorps team to help design the program, facilitate team building games with the group, and chaperon the students while on campus. This was the first year of the Eye-DOC camp so they started out with just 15 students. Ferris State bused the high schools students to the college where they were able to stay in the dorms on campus.

While the students were there, they not only learned about optometry, but about life after high school as well. There were speakers talking about topics such as “Realizing Your Potential in Life,” “Focus on Your Future,” “Applying to College and Affording It,” “Why Optometry?”, and “Being an AmeriCorps Member.” The students also engaged in hands-on projects focused on the eye. They got to rebuild a model eye, discover how contacts work, and even dissect a cow’s eye. In between speakers and eye labs the students did the team building activities the AmeriCorps team planned. These activities required strong communication skills that helped them bond and play off people's strengths and not their weaknesses.

When we first started this camp we didn’t know how interested the kids would be in optometry; but by the end, the kids still wanted to know more! They were asking questions like, “Will there be another camp next year? If so, can we come again?” There was one student who initially didn’t know if he would be attending college after high school. But when he left the camp he was pumped up about his one more year of high school and then attending college. He didn’t know what he wanted to major in or what school he wanted to attend, but just the idea of him wanting to go to college made this camp worthwhile.

The end of my second and final year of AmeriCorps service is approaching very quickly. For the past two years I have helped my community grow. I have done things like increase access to health insurance, educate youth about tobacco, help patients afford their medication, and give out free books to read. I have also become a better person in so many ways. I have developed leadership, communication, and computer skills and health care training. This has been a very long journey, which I’m sad to see is drawing to a close…but I am glad I had the opportunity to serve. The AmeriCorps Pledge features words I will live by forever.

The AmeriCorps Pledge

I will get things done for America - to make our people safer, smarter, and healthier.

I will bring Americans together to strengthen our communities.

Faced with apathy, I will take action.

Faced with conflict, I will seek common ground.

Faced with adversity, I will persevere.

I will carry this commitment with me this year and beyond.

I am an AmeriCorps member, and I will get things done.