Michigan’s AmeriCorps Member Council – Posting #36

Hello, Colette again with readetroit. This is my third and final blog post as a Michigan's AmeriCorps Member Council Representative. As I near the end of my service, I’ve begun to reflect heavily upon my year of service. I know I have made a difference in my community, state, and the world. Whether I was tutoring children at the former Heilmann Park Elementary School (now Fisher Magnet Academy Lower), or digging and planting trees at Memorial Park in Flint, or packing food boxes for deserving families at Capuchin in Detroit, it was all done for the greater good of all mankind.

I’ve always been community oriented and involved in activities and issues that are important to me. So when I was placed at a school to assist with tutoring it made perfect sense! I served more than 30 children in a day and each and every one of them brought a unique perspective to our tutoring sessions. They taught me how to laugh at myself and helped me be more patient and understanding. I’m sure they learned a lot from me, but I learned so much more from them in the end. I’ve gained some rewarding relationships, especially with the parents in the community and for that I will be forever thankful.

AmeriCorps has been an amazing and life-changing experience I will never forget. I have enjoyed being a part of the Michigan’s AmeriCorps Member Council, which has helped me to develop my leadership and public speaking skills. I have gained a greater understanding of team building capacity and that I have to do what is best for the team because we all want to reach the same common goal. I’ve gained a greater understanding of the non-profit sector and I am truly appreciative of the opportunity I have been given to serve my community. I wish everyone much success in their future endeavors. Let us remember to continue to get things done!

Michigan’s AmeriCorps Member Council – Posting #35

Hello and welcome back to the Michigan's AmeriCorps Member Council Blog. This is Matthew Reaume again with Huron Pines AmeriCorps and I am writing to you for my final blog post of the 2008-2009 service year. I am currently wrapping up my duties and responsibilities at the Michigan Association of Conservation Districts in Lansing before I begin to look ahead to my next year of service as Cross Stream VISTA for the Michigan Community Service Commission (MCSC).

In looking back at my first year of service, I find I have come away from this experience having learned many valuable lessons about National Service in the nonprofit sector. Among these lessons, perhaps the most valuable to me in preparing for my next position has been the crucial understanding that with a continued decline in resources and an increasing need for services, organizations must be willing to cooperate and partner with each other to pool resources and technical expertise if our missions and goals are to be fully realized.

After completing a lengthy project to determine the training needs of Conservation District Directors throughout northeast Michigan, it has become abundantly clear that strong and healthy partnerships remain a key ingredient to sustaining District efforts at providing sound conservation management services at the local level. It is my intention as the future MCSC Cross Stream VISTA to take this idea and expand upon it to deliver key capacity building techniques to sustain and grow Michigan’s National Service efforts.

While I will surely miss being part of the work currently being done as part of Michigan's environmental conservation efforts, I am excited and pleased to be part of the growing movement to expand the impact of the National Service movement in Michigan. I look forward to communicating all of the new developments in this effort in the coming year and wish all of my colleagues and peers the best of luck in their future endeavors. Thank you ALL for giving me the opportunity to serve my community, state, and country – it has truly been a unique pleasure I will never forget.

Michigan’s AmeriCorps Member Council – Posting #34

Hello! I’m Kathleen from Downriver CARES AmeriCorps. In a previous blog post, I wrote about a Community Resource Center (CRC) that was cleaned up after a flood. This summer has been an exciting one at the CRC where the Guidance Center, with the help of our AmeriCorps team, put on a free summer camp for the local children and teenagers.

Studies show children from low-income families lose more information during summer breaks, beginning a cycle that increasingly holds them back year after year. Our goal with a summer camp was to encourage critical thinking by providing fun, science-based activities all summer long. We studied topics like outer space, ecosystems, botany, and herpetology. The campers were able to explore these topics with hands-on activities.

We had a great time learning this summer, but I think the relationships we built with the children were just as important as the topics taught. Summer camp is such a unique setting – it allows for a relaxed atmosphere that fuels a mentor friendship between camp counselors and campers. This relationship is not always achieved in a classroom, teacher-student setting. Besides the educational stuff, the camp counselors were able to teach and discuss life issues. They regularly talked about pro-social character traits with the campers, like respect, trustworthiness, citizenship, and responsibility.

Through this summer camp, it is my hope the students grow in a well-rounded way, in both the mind and the heart. I have had a wonderful summer hanging out with these kids. I consider it a privilege to have been a part of their lives.

Michigan’s AmeriCorps Member Council – Posting #33

Rosie here from the Faith In Youth Partnership. As my first year of service comes to an end, I have taken time to reflect on my year both personally, and within the Michigan’s AmeriCorps program. Why is service so important to me and why should it be to others as well? These thoughts are quickly bound by one word: Ubuntu.

"A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed."
- Desmond Tutu

This message is the root of service in my life. Service is about becoming a whole person because you have made your neighbors whole.

"I am because you are, because we are."
- Desmond Tutu

These words are particularly pleasing at the moment because there is a call for people of this nation to SERVE. President Obama has called on us to help aid our nation's recovery by serving in our communities. One particular way to get involved in this national summer service movement is through the website www.serve.gov!

Whether you have Community Centers that could use volunteers or you are thinking of starting an organization of your own, www.serve.gov has something for everyone!