22 March 3 Takeaways from my VISTA Service March 22, 2019 By rverhoffkiss AmeriCorps, Member Impact Story 0 As spring approaches, so does the start of the 2019-20 recruitment season of Ohio’s AmeriCorps programs. It’s exciting to think about the coming crop of people committing to a year of service with AmeriCorps. It’s a bit like a choose your own adventure tale—you can make a difference in fields as diverse as healthcare, education, environmental, and capacity building. This time of fresh opportunity makes me reflect on my time as an AmeriCorps VISTA member and how it impacted my life. During my senior year of college, I knew that I wanted to kick-start my post-college life with a year of service and ultimately wound up serving three years as a VISTA member. I served first within the Reynoldsburg School District setting a framework of tutoring and family engagement programming at an elementary school. It was a challenging year but inspired me to serve again, this time in a leadership role. As a VISTA Leader with Ohio Campus Compact’s Connect2Complete program, a college retention program I found a site where I could serve in a field—higher education access—I cared about while building up my marketable skill sets. Inspired by the start of the recruitment season, here are the 3 takeaways I most appreciate from my 3 years of service: 1. Relationships: AmeriCorps brought me into contact with a lot of wonderful people and expanded my network of friends and mentors. My first year of service taught me the importance of camaraderie and I enjoyed our quarterly member retreats and happy hours. The different perspectives of our corps were a huge part of my AmeriCorps education and their support carried me through the ups and downs of service. 2. Skills: My undergraduate education was steeped in the liberal arts and AmeriCorps allowed me to take this background and build up a hard skill set that translated to the professional world. I learned how to plan an event, lead a meeting, initiate programming, network, and recruit and support an AmeriCorps program. Along the way I discovered that I loved national service as much as analyzing literature. 3. Community Investment: I chose to commit to service in my home region of central Ohio and AmeriCorps introduced a new understanding of the city I’m from. While the focus of my program was higher education, VISTA’s central tenant is to alleviate poverty and we dug into all the interconnected issues like transportation, housing, and food access. I engaged with different neighborhoods and got a richer sense of what makes Columbus and what still limits its potential. Columbus came alive for me during my 3 years of service as I connected with the people and the places, and I transformed into a person who knew how to get things done. What will you take away from your AmeriCorps term? By: Ava Carvour Related Posts A New Service Year is Here! How Ohio’s AmeriCorps Programs Orient Members for Service The 2019-20 AmeriCorps program year has begun! Across the state, Ohio’s 23 AmeriCorps State programs are kicking off with orientations that prepare members for their intensive terms of service. Global Youth Service Day Grantees On April 20-22, 2018, more than 1,300 volunteers will participate in service projects organized for Global Youth Service Day, which will be supported by ServeOhio project grants. Established in 1988, Global Youth Service Day is the largest service event in the world, and the only day of service dedicated to children and youth. Now in its 30th year, Global Youth Service Day recognizes the positive impact that young people have on their communities 365 days a year. GYSD is celebrated in more than 100 countries with youth-led service projects. Ten youth volunteer projects will take place in nine Ohio cities – Bellefontaine, Cleveland, Maumee, Nelsonville, Sandusky, Stewart, Sunbury, Warren, Wauseon, and Youngstown. The grants, made possible through ServeOhio’s Stewards of Service corporate partners Honda of America Mfg., and American Electric Power Foundation, range between $500 and $1,000 each. Year in Review: Bright Spots from 2020 It has been a tough year. Like organizations across the country and the world, ServeOhio made major shifts to our programming in 2020 and transitioned to a virtual office. While the challenges were great this year, it was also a year where we saw incredible resiliency, passion for service, and new opportunities. As we prepare to ring in the new year and hope for a brighter 2021, we wanted to take a minute to reflect on the good stuff from 2020. National Service Recognition Day – Dayton, Ohio AmeriCorps members and Senior Corps volunteers are Getting Things Done in Dayton! Justice Talking: The Meaning of Service Justice Talking is a reading and discussion program for AmeriCorps members featuring facilitated discussions that use short philosophical and literary texts, images, and videos on the nature of justice, service and related themes. In partnership with Ohio Humanities, ServeOhio trains AmeriCorps members to facilitate Justice Talking with their fellow Corps members, where they become more familiar with the art of humanities-based discussion and have a better understanding of the importance of civic reflection. Sierra Faris is a Justice Talking facilitator with the COMCorps AmeriCorps program in Athens. Read her reflections on the impact Justice Talking has had on her service. National Service-A Powerful Tool for Uniting Americans for a Common Effort Heather Foster is the Regional Administrator for the new Midwest Regional Office of the Corporation for National and Community Service. In this guest blog post, Heather discusses the launch of the new Regional Office, the impact of national service in the region, and how national service can act as a bridge across divides to unite Americans in a common effort and lift each other up. Comments are closed.