AmeriCorps Helps the Homeless

Hi! My name is Amanda Johnson and I am a second year Michigan’s Campaign to End Homelessness AmeriCorps member. The main goal of the Michigan’s Campaign to End Homelessness AmeriCorps program is to help communities become more dynamic partners in the Campaign by increasing capacity through AmeriCorps members serving in shelters, housing resource centers, and other service providers. We are placed throughout the state and work with a variety of programs and agencies.

AmeriCorps members do outreach and resource networking where we identify people in need of services and link them to those services. An example of this is if an individual might be eligible for the Homeless Assistance Recovery Program (HARP). We would refer the individual to the lead agency of this program and might assist with filling out the paperwork. AmeriCorps members also provide housing assistance where we help in finding safe and affordable housing. This might be through the creation of a housing list or we might actively search for affordable housing available at that time. Members also provide follow up support and are involved with volunteer generation.

For my year of service, I am placed at Midland Area Homes in Midland County. Midland Area Homes is a private nonprofit corporation that helps low-income Midland County residents maintain and improve housing conditions for safe and independent living. Midland Area Homes is the lead agency for HARP and Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Rehousing (HPRP) for Midland County as well as the Central Community Housing Intake for Midland. I serve primarily with the HPRP program where I provide assistance locating affordable housing, providing household furnishings, and offering follow up support to those in the HPRP program. I also link these individuals with other resources that are needed which can include referring them to a local food pantry, assisting with completing a State Emergency Relief (SER) application, and completing a HARP application when appropriate.

This year I was also able to be a part of the planning of Project Homeless Connect in Midland County. This is an event that happens once a year where a variety of agencies that work with those in need of housing assistance get together and provide those services to individuals in need. We had agencies that provided weatherization, utility assistance, rent assistance, legal advice, and more all in one building. There was also a give-a-way room where coats, hats, laundry detergent, and boxes of food were given to those that came to the event. This year Midland County Project Homeless Connect saw an increase of 49 percent in households from the previous year and an increase of 42 percent in people that attended.

If you would like to hear more about all the amazing things Michigan’s Campaign to End Homelessness AmeriCorps members are doing, please visit our blog at http://americorpscteh.blogspot.com/.

Helping Out in the Upper Peninsula

Hi, I am Shiloh Fitzgibbon, and I am a LeaderCorps member and my AmeriCorps site is at the Munising Mather Elementary School, a Pre-K-6 grade school. I work with students in second and third grades, usually helping students one-on-one or in small groups.

The Program I serve with is MARESA (Marquette-Alger Regional Educational Service Agency), which is located in Marquette, Michigan. MARESA services Marquette and Alger Counties in all things educational. MARESA AmeriCorps has 10 full-time and three part-time members. Our service sites are mostly in schools, where we tutor children of all ages. There are a few of us that are volunteer coordinators as well.

AmeriCorps-MARESA includes three general categories:

1. Establishing service-learning programs and curricula;
2. Developing staffing and programming for school or community-based agencies, family resource, or youth development programs; or
3. Providing direct educational support (tutoring, work-based learning, behavioral intervention, employability skills, etc).

The services of our individual AmeriCorps members are developed by each site based on their specific needs.

The last few months we have been helping our communities. In October 2010 we picked up garbage on our adopted highway section in Gwinn for two miles. We picked up three bags of trash. In December, we helped the Meals on Wheels with handing out boxes of food to those in need. We also helped the Salvation Army with sorting unwrapped gifts for their toy drive, so every child was able to get a present for Christmas.

In February we helped build blockades for the U.P. 200 dog sled races that are held in Marquette and Gwinn. We had two crews, one in Gwinn helping set up for the Midnight run (91-mile dog sled race) and one crew building blockades for the U.P. 200 dog sled race (241 miles). It was a windy day and the warm weather had caused the snow to melt and made the race icy, which made it hard on the dogs, mushers, and handlers. Because of the unsafe conditions, the race was shortened.

I’d also like to mention the following agencies that have partnered with MARESA’S AmeriCorps:

• Gwinn Area Community Schools
• Early Childhood Playgroups for preschoolers in local districts
• Career Tech/Development with students with local districts
• Marquette Area Public Schools
• Munising Public Schools
• North Star Academy
• Great lakes Recovery Center-Youth Services
• Teaching Family Homes

For more information, visit www.maresa.org.

Faith In Youth: Teaching Students to Value Themselves and Their Community

Hello! I’m Scott Baumgartner, and I’m a second year AmeriCorps member serving through the Faith in Youth Partnership. FIY, as we commonly refer to ourselves, is a collaboration of area youth ministry centers and churches through Good Samaritan Ministries in Holland. Through the FIY Partnership, our members are currently serving middle school youth during and after school and throughout the summer. We have sites throughout the Holland/Zeeland area, working either to serve students within a specific school district or neighborhood.

The goal of FIY is to provide students with positive activities, tutoring, and mentoring in hopes of increasing the number of developmental assets students in our communities have. Some examples of the assets we aim to increase in our kids include increased commitment to learning, increased ability to resist at-risk behaviors, and increased feelings of positive self-esteem. Some of our sites provide services during school through alternative-suspension programs, where students receive academic and behavioral support, and take part in community service activities. We also engage students at the schools through additional mentoring opportunities. Our sites largely exist to provide after school support, as well. We do this through after school tutoring, mentoring, and recreational programs.

For my term of service I have been placed at the Bridge Youth Ministry Center in Zeeland. We work directly with the Zeeland Public Schools district. I am responsible for developing and facilitating all of our mentoring programming. We run an alternative suspension program, after school community service and one-on-one tutoring/mentoring programs, drop-in activities, and a basketball team. Each of our programs has a mentoring and service component, and we aim to provide all of our middle school students with at least one peer and/or adult mentor.

It is these mentoring relationships that make dramatic and lasting differences in my students’ lives. So often, before having worked with a tutor/mentor, I have seen a defeated and negative mentality among many of the students I work with, and often it is the result of few, if any, positive relationships at home. Within these mentoring relationships, we encourage our volunteers to share a spirit of giving back with our students. Through this, my site has developed a community service program called Bridging Out, which kids love, and we have seen results that illustrate a growing sense of positive values and empowerment among many of our students.

So far this year in Bridging Out we have visited area businesses to learn about the positive impacts of local spending, visited area colleges to learn about the opportunities that exist beyond middle and high school, done yard work for those with disabilities, decorated ornaments for volunteers, volunteered at the humane society, decorated cookies and played games with residents at a local nursing home, and much more. The kids are starting to really understand how fun helping others and giving back to your community can be.

As I begin to hit the home stretch during these last few months of school and into the summer, I hope I can continue to not only stress with my students the importance of being at a place where they feel safe and valued, but that they would also be able to see that taking initiative to give back to your community can be whatever you make of it. In my case, it has been tremendous. After all, isn’t that exactly what AmeriCorps, or any type of service, should be?!