Using AmeriCorps as a Pathway to Employment

Hello! My name is Katie Niersbach and I am an AmeriCorps alum who recently joined First Book as an Operations Manager. First Book is a nonprofit that connects kids in need with new books. We’re based out of Washington, DC, but I get to travel nationwide, overseeing large-scale book distributions. My job is a perfect balance of on-the-ground physical work and time at a desk, manipulating inventory data.

Prior to serving in AmeriCorps, I studied Advertising and Marketing at Syracuse University, where I realized I wasn’t wild about trying to sell somebody about the benefits of a 15-blade razor. During a career fair I gravitated toward the service booths, such as Teach for America. I had a great conversation with somebody from AmeriCorps who was part of the National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC). After the fair, I checked out the AmeriCorps website and was hooked!

I became an AmeriCorps*VISTA at Children for Children, which is a nonprofit that brings service opportunities to children and families living in New York City. I oversaw our online database of opportunities and was charged with expanding our network of nonprofits willing to host youth volunteers. I have so many wonderful memories of my VISTA term – they all blend together into one great year! The people I worked with made a huge impression on me. Suddenly I was surrounded by like-minded individuals all excited about service and volunteering. It opened my eyes to the nonprofit world and inspired me to continue in the field after my service year ended.

My year as an AmeriCorps*VISTA was my first work experience out of college and it paved the way for my career. I remained at my service site as a full-time employee. During my service year, the professional experience I gained was HUGE. I remember sharing my intense experiences with friends who graduated alongside me. They were stuck performing mundane tasks in their entry-level jobs while I had specific, important tasks that helped keep our small nonprofit afloat.

I think anybody who has done AmeriCorps would enthusiastically say, “Do it!” Think about where you want to be after your year of service… Of course, visions change – but since AmeriCorps can inspire you to become more connected to your community, make the most of it and pick a place where you might see yourself staying. Also, take advantage of the program summaries online and try to speak with current AmeriCorps members at the organization to make sure the program is a good match for you. Since compensation is small and the hours can be long, it’s particularly important to be passionate about what you’re doing every day.

Serving the Volunteer Centers of Michigan

Howdy!

Matthew Reaume here, and I’m glad to be back on the LeaderCorps Blog! I was privileged enough to serve on the Michigan’s AmeriCorps LeaderCorps from 2008-2010 as part of the ACE (Alumni and Citizenship Engagement) team. In that time I served with Huron Pines AmeriCorps, and as a VISTA with the Michigan Community Service Commission. This year, I am serving as VISTA Leader with the Volunteer Centers of Michigan (VCM), supporting a fantastic team of VISTAs dedicated to increasing the capacity of Volunteer Centers in Grand Rapids, Petoskey, and Lenawee.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar, Volunteer Centers are organizations dedicated to matching community volunteers to appropriate service opportunities. While some Centers stand alone as their own 501(c)3, many times they are housed within existing organizations such as the local United Way.

What makes a Volunteer Center so unique is the ability of the organization to leverage local partnerships to identify specific community needs and the unique desires and skills of residents who wish to volunteer. This process ensures that the right volunteers are consistently matched with the right opportunities to serve, contributing to higher quality service, satisfaction, volunteer retention rates, and most importantly, impact.

VCM VISTAs are responsible for enhancing the capacity of Volunteer Centers to effectively engage youth, volunteers age 55 and over, highly-skilled volunteers, volunteer leaders, and develop programs that streamline community collaboration through the implementation of regional volunteer project calendars. In addition, VISTAs also leverage resources for their organizations, conduct volunteer management training to nonprofit partners, and collaborate with other national service programs to implement National Days of Service projects.

My role as a VISTA Leader is to provide ongoing support to the VISTA program by developing training content, providing resources and one-on-one guidance, as well as implement volunteer management best practices internally for replication. The most rewarding aspect of being a VISTA Leader has to be the opportunity to cultivate new and inspired leaders in the field of social justice. Every day I am impressed with the impact that results from the dedicated service of this team of highly motivated and caring individuals.

Currently, I am in the midst of recruiting young men and women to join our effort for the program’s next fiscal year. Volunteer Centers of Michigan was awarded a grant through the HandsOn Network to support five AmeriCorps VISTA members. Host sites will be located in: Detroit (x2), Port Huron, Flint and Niles. The Volunteer Centers of Michigan was also awarded five slots from the Corporation for National and Community Service to host VISTA members in the following locations: Battle Creek, Grand Rapids, Petoskey, Kalamazoo, and Sault St. Marie. VISTA members are being recruited to begin their year of service in November.

For more information about the Volunteer Centers of Michigan and our VISTA program, please visit www.mivolunteers.org. Don’t forget to “like” us facebook by visiting www.facebook.com/Volunteer.Centers.Michigan.

Engaging Volunteers Through VISTA Service

Greetings from the field! My name is Chelsea Martin and I am about nine months into my year as an AmeriCorps*VISTA with the Michigan Community Service Commission (MCSC). My VISTA service has been spent supporting the Volunteer Michigan initiative that actively works to increase volunteerism across the state of Michigan by focusing on National Days of Service, volunteer management technology, and strategic youth engagement.

Why I Chose to Serve:
I have always had an interest in civic engagement and community involvement and felt this was an opportunity to walk the talk. I learned about the AmeriCorps*VISTA opportunity while I was finishing up my undergraduate degrees at Eastern Michigan University and thought it would give me the chance to explore the nonprofit world while giving back to my community.

How I Support Volunteerism in Michigan:
One of the HUGE projects currently being launched in the volunteer management world is a new technology called HandsOn Connect. HandsOn Connect is an amazing technology that allows volunteer connector organizations, like volunteer centers, to work with local nonprofits to post volunteer opportunities and track who and how people are getting engaged. The new system helps volunteer centers create visually appealing websites for returning and prospective volunteers to visit and search for opportunities to serve based on zip code or city name. My role with HandsOn Connect has been to support seven communities across the state in their individual launch process. It has been great to see several of their sites “Go Live” and all the potential the new technology is creating for their organization and their communities.

In addition to HandsOn Connect, I help with National Days of Service like the September 11 National Day of Service & Remembrance and the Martin Luther King Jr. National Day of Service. For MLK Day in 2011, the MCSC and our partners distributed $15,000 in mini-grants to support more than 70 local projects. I supported those local sites by offering tools and resources to make their projects more successful. I’m currently in the planning stages of the 2012 MLK Day and hope the projects get stronger and engage more volunteers as a result of the past years efforts!

As the last months of my service start flying by, I’m taking a step back and thinking about how to enable all of Michigan’s citizens to gain access to volunteer opportunities. HandsOn Connect is a wonderful system that will allow those with internet access to find ways to volunteer, but not everyone has the internet or a computer. As a result, there need to be additional engagement strategies that don’t include “new” technologies to reach potential volunteers.

Volunteerism has wonderful benefits to both the served and the serving. It can be great job experience, help fill holes in a resume, build new skills, and much more! Those benefits can lead individuals to getting a first job out of college, re-employment, or better employment. As everyone in Michigan knows, that is the direction more people need to be headed in and access to volunteer opportunities can help them get there.

My experience has an AmeriCorps*VISTA has truly been one-of-a-kind and given me the chance to see volunteer service from a whole new vantage point.

For more information about HandsOn Connect visit http://www.handsonnetwork.org/actioncenters/handsonconnect and check out the demo video!

Serving with Mentor Michigan

Hi, my name is Jess Chung and I’m the Special Initiatives AmeriCorps*VISTA for Mentor Michigan. Like Learn and Serve – see Ellen’s post from last week – Mentor Michigan is based in the Michigan Community Service Commission (MCSC). Mentor Michigan supports more than 250 mentoring programs in Michigan, providing training, resources, and partnership opportunities throughout the year.

Why did I join AmeriCorps*VISTA?

I finished my M.A. in Educational Administration and Policy at the University of Michigan in April 2010. My husband, Noel, still had another year before finishing his M.A. in Entomology at Michigan State. (Yeah, I know, we’re a “house divided,” but in our defense neither of us is originally from Michigan so we actually didn’t know the extent of the rivalry between U of M and MSU until after we got accepted to graduate schools.) The summer after I graduated, I did some contract work for the Michigan Department of Education; these were mostly short-term projects, like grant-writing, editing, and research. After a few months of this, I decided I wanted a longer-term project that would positively affect underrepresented students, ideally in the realm of K-12 education. Since Noel and I had already agreed to look at Ph.D. programs outside Michigan, I knew I could only commit to a year.

AmeriCorps*VISTA fit well with my goals – a year-long commitment, a focus on service and poverty-ending activities, and (bonus!) an education award to help pay off my graduate loans. I began my service in November 2010, but transferred from my initial placement to the MCSC in February 2011. Joining Mentor Michigan felt right because supporting mentoring programs meant promoting a relationship-based practice that can provide the academic and social supports youth need to succeed in school and life.

What do I do at Mentor Michigan?

As the Special Initiatives AmeriCorps*VISTA, I focus on providing support to mentoring programs serving specific youth populations Mentor Michigan has identified as needing special attention. For my term of service, that youth population is youth in and aging out of foster care. My responsibilities are to identify and make available the tools, resources, and training mentoring programs serving youth in foster care need to support high quality match relationships.

Youth are put in foster care when the state determines their parents are unable to care for them or it is unsafe for them to remain at home; although a good number of youth are reunified with their families or, if their parents’ rights are terminated, adopted, but many remain in the foster care system until emancipation (between the ages of 18-21). I didn’t understand how much foster youth need caring adults, like mentors, in their lives until I began doing research and talking to the staff at different mentoring programs.
Hearing about the difficulties these youth have to face and overcome on a daily basis, and learning that May is National Foster Care Month, motivated me to put together the Foster Care Month Mentoring Toolkit. This Toolkit provides mentoring programs with materials and ideas for promoting the need for and recognizing and supporting the service of mentors in the lives of foster youth. Along with the Toolkit, I’ve begun summarizing research and compiling resources on the Mentor Michigan website and helping to organize foster care mentoring workshop sessions at Mentor Michigan’s annual conference in November.

One of the difficult things about being a VISTA is that you don’t see the immediate effects of your service. I don’t directly serve youth in foster care and I rarely get to see how programs implement the tools and resources I’ve made available on our website. But since I’ve begun, I’ve received feedback through phone calls, emails, and even Facebook that indicate I’ve helped Mentor Michigan get a good start on supporting programs serving youth in foster care. Those, and the terrific people in the MCSC, are what keep me going and remind me that what I’m doing this year is worthwhile.

Shameless plug: Won’t you consider becoming a mentor to a youth in foster care today? Check out mentoring programs near you on the Mentor Michigan Directory of Programs (www.mentormichigan.org).