Earth Day and Beyond

Hi everybody! This is Trevor Pegues serving in the Faith In Youth program in beautiful West Michigan. Here in Holland, the Tulip Time Festival is in full swing, and the streets are humming with tourists and freshly de-hibernated locals. Our crew had the opportunity to participate in the festivities by marching in the “Street Sweeper” parade. It was a unique and exciting outing for the entire service crew. Marching through downtown Holland, proudly displaying our AmeriCorps grays and banners which displayed our site names, was a fresh experience (even for a second year vet like myself!). I especially enjoyed the opportunity to let such a large group of people know about what we do at Faith In Youth.

Speaking of which, I haven’t informed any of you readers about my service experience, what we do, and who we serve. Please allow me to illuminate. The Faith In Youth partnership works in collaboration with three area school districts, nine area churches, and youth ministry organizations to provide programming for at-risk middle school youth, including; tutoring, one-on-one mentoring, and drop-in after school activities.

We have recently jumped out of our busy schedules to participate in a variety of service-related community activities, all of which are leading up to the 2010 AmeriCorps Week and annual Russ Mawby Signature Service Project. We began our festivities by conducting an Earth Day Project, which consisted of cleaning up neighborhoods in an urban residential area near downtown Holland. As people from all places gathered to begin the event at Cornerstone Ministries it was amazing to see how each person came for two purposes, making our Earth a cleaner place and volunteering as a team. Two teams started off and walked the nearby streets of 16^th through 20^th in a contest to see who could gather the most trash. After two hours of picking up items our team was ready to celebrate our success in making the neighborhood greener by having a community celebration consisting of serving hot dogs, vegan dogs, and nachos!

Our crew would not stop here though because we were all excited about our next opportunity to serve! Our goal was to take our volunteering in a different direction and help support a local organization that trains abused horses for therapeutic riding for children and teens. As a start-up organization, their needs ranged from grooming horses to removing stumps to adding a brand new gate to a fence. Our group gathered together with teenagers from one of our sites and we started tackling each of the tasks one by one. Removing the stump proved to be the most exciting part as not only is it thrilling to see a large stump removed but also because we got to see the horses run around! As we got to experience nature with the horses, the middle school students who ride them also had the chance to get their hands dirty. After this experience, they claim they enjoyed themselves but prefer city living!

Finally with the 2010 AmeriCorps Week drawing near, our team is ready to expand our efforts beyond being a neighborhood or even community project, but to go all the way to a county-wide project. With spring in the air and summer quickly approaching, Faith in Youth contacted the county parks and asked what their needs were entering the summer season. Next week, Tunnel Park, Riley Park, and Hemlock Park will undergo an intensive spring-cleaning. Our team will split into three groups to make sure signs and picnic benches are painted, and that each park is cleaned and groomed for a busy season of spring/summer fun.

This year our service focus was being out in nature so we could enjoy the fresh air downtown, in a neighborhood, out on a farm, and in a county park. But it was also time for our team to expose the AmeriCorps name. It was apparent our community will benefit richly by not just understanding what AmeriCorps is but also how they can become involved in our efforts to improve the community. These past few weeks have been a time of bonding with other teammates, community members, and feeling good about keeping our Earth happy and healthy!