LRU VISTA continues serving Hickory community

As a Hickory native, Ariel Mitchell has always been part of the community surrounding Lenoir-Rhyne University. But now, after three years as a student at LRU and another nine months as an AmeriCorps VISTA working with Centro Latino of Hickory, Ariel is finally feeling she's making a difference in her hometown; and she doesn't want to move on just yet.

"There are a lot of things we've started this year," she explains, "and I want to see them through. Now that my relationships with Centro Latino and the ladies who work there are strong, I feel my work isn't done."

Ariel's passion for the university's new partnership with Centro Latino of Hickory led to her decision to continue as a VISTA at LRU. She'll start a second term of service in August.

Her initial work with Centro Latino - which provides English language and adult skills classes, immigration services, an after-school program, and other services to Latino residents - was challenging due to language barriers, scheduling issues, and financial constraints. But Ariel was able to spend time at the agency learning about its work and the growing Latino community it serves; and she had some early successes last fall, organizing a Centro Latino fundraising event at an LRU soccer game and creating a community work study position at the site.

In recent months, she has helped the agency develop plans for a new "Adopto un Abuelito" (Adopt a Grandparent) program that will pair women in the agency's health group with older Latino residents to deliver food assistance and serve as companion/advocates. She helped shape the program through discussions with Centro's executive director and with women in the group, and she connected Centro leaders with other local food assistance programs to learn best practices and get advice on program design. A parallel effort to create an emergency food pantry at Centro is also underway.

As these programs expand in the coming months, Ariel looks forward to connecting students, faculty and staff at LRU with Centro to support these and existing projects like the after-school program. She has already created a volunteer manual and application process for the agency to better manage student and community volunteers.

First year LRU students at Hands on Hickory last fall.

 In addition to her work building a partnership with Centro Latino, Ariel helps LRU students engage with the Hickory community in other ways. She organized the university's Hands on Hickory event for first year students and coordinated community service sites for the MLK Day of Service in January. She has spoken to a number of LRU's "first year experience" classes about local service opportunities, and she brought a number of community agencies onto campus for a service fair.

Even before she became a VISTA, Ariel's own educational experience played a part in broadening her vision beyond the campus. Before transferring to LRU as a sophomore, Ariel attended a state school, then took classes at Catawba Valley Community College. Her studies as a human and community services major at LR helped prepare her for her VISTA role. This year, building relationships with LR student leaders and volunteers has been another positive for Ariel. She hopes to take advantage of all these relationships to help more people connect with Hickory the way she has.

"With those relationships, and another year of service, I think we can make our volunteer involvement grow immensely," she says.

Mary Baldwin VISTA cultivates new projects

Leah Pallant likes to make things. She bakes sourdough bread, brews her own kombucha (a fermented, sweetened tea), and she's recently gotten back into amateur bookbinding. She also likes to help things grow and spent the winter nudging new life into a few seedlings in her room. She's excited to give them a new home in her yard when the weather gets warm enough.

Leah is the VISTA working out of the Spencer Center for Civic and Global Engagement at Mary Baldwin College, a small, liberal arts school in Staunton, VA. Mary Baldwin has just under 800 residential students which can make the volunteer pool seem dauntingly small. But Leah praises the culture of service at the school and highlights their big push toward service learning for their residential students. Back in October she had great participation at the Food Day events she organized and more recently she lead a group of students on an alternative break experience.

When she's not at Mary Baldwin, Leah spends her time with Project GROWS. Project GROWS is a nonprofit community farm that helps educate the population on nutrition and food security. Leah has established a relationship between the organization and the college that she is confident will continue to flourish after her VISTA term is done in August. Currently, she's working with them to develop a manual on volunteer best practices. She's also connected more than 40 students with volunteer opportunities at Project GROWS. That's 5% of the Mary Baldwin student body!

Leah describes her life so far as a VISTA as both a challenge and a joy. She says she didn't know what to expect when she joined and remembers talking with former VISTAs who told her to get used to ramen noodles and late nights. Others praised the experience. Eight months in Leah says VISTA is what she hoped it would be: "I am autonomous and my coworkers respect me, but I am also getting better at asking for help. Money is tight, but it's nothing a good budget (and a lot of wishing that my car won't break down) can't deal with."

Leah grew up in a small town in North Western Pennsylvania called Meadville. She shares her hometown with Talon Zippers, Dad's Dog Food, and Allegheny College. She did her undergraduate work at Oberlin College and Conservatory and graduated in May of 2012. While there she focused on environmental studies and waste-water treatment and spent all four years working at (and eventually running) the Living Machine.

VISTA was another opportunity for Leah to get creative, get her hands dirty, and give back. Forty percent of the Meadville population lives below the poverty line. Looking back at her experience growing up she says, "Knowing so many people who do so much with so little, I can't imagine doing anything with my life other than giving back everything I can to the people around me." It is this sentiment which reflects what she describes as the driving force behind her service: Tikkun Olam, which translates from Hebrew to 'healing the world' or 'repairing the world.' Leah describes what it means to her:

"The underlying concept is that, though no one person is expected to fix everything, everyone is expected to contribute. I'm not sure what exactly my parents did to make tikkun olam so central to my life, but they did a good job of whatever it was, and I've always known that I want to spend my life working towards social justice. When it came time to graduate college, becoming a VISTA seemed like the perfect next move: a chance to get my hands dirty and build skills that would help me towards my future career while also helping a community."

Leah's dedication to her work, her community, and her drive to serve embodies the VISTA spirit. She brings life to new projects and encourages growth in the partnership between Mary Baldwin and ProjectGROW. It's no wonder then, given the opportunity to have any superpower, Leah choose not flight or telepathy, but to have a real life green thumb so she could coax plants into growing even in rooms without windows.

Campus Compact and AmeriCorps VISTA Never Leaves You

Today's post was originally posted on the National Campus Compact VISTA Blog. It comes from a two time Compact VISTA Alumna and current VISTA Program Manager at Pennsylvania Campus Compact.

Campus Compact and AmeriCorps VISTA Never Leaves You
by Amy Carraux Price

I'm humbled and honored to introduce myself: I'm Amy Carraux Price and I'm self-identifying as a "Triple Campus Compact-o." You see, students at Tufts University, where Jumbo the Elephant serves as the campus mascot, may claim special "Triple Jumbo" status when they earn Tufts undergraduate, graduate, and doctorate degrees. While I can't claim a "Jumbo" status, I've had the great privilege of serving or working with three Campus Compacts: Massachusetts Campus Compact, North Carolina Campus Compact, and now Pennsylvania Campus Compact.

After graduating from Elon University with a Bachelors of Science and before completing my Master of Arts in Community and Organizational Leadership at Emory and Henry College, I completed two terms of service as an AmeriCorps VISTA. I served first with Massachusetts Campus Compact with Tufts University, and then completed my second year with North Carolina Campus Compact at Mars Hill College. A few years and experiences later, I've joined Pennsylvania Campus Compact as the Program Manager where I am responsible for leading our AmeriCorps programs. What can I say? I'm passionate and compelled by this important work and the mission of both Campus Compact and AmeriCorps. (I don't want to press my luck with a fourth Campus Compact experience, as I am confident I fooled each state! Shh, don't tell my great colleagues at PACC!

Two brief thoughts related to all this: my Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA experiences made me who I am today and the Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA programs are defining and equipping the next generation of leaders in our great field. I am humbled to feel it and see it every day.  

For me, two years of service provided professional and personal lifelong transformations. I can't extend enough gratitude to my fellow VISTAs and the Campus Compact staff, host site institutions and community partners. You pushed me, you stretched me, you provided definitions, and you gave support. You created intentional space that allowed us to wrestle with the challenges in our communities and beyond. You let me have a huge part of important and necessary community projects.  You trusted me. You helped me envision my future and set tangible goals to get there. You helped me define and develop my understanding of community, of equality, of partnership, of responsibility.

And being one of those staff members, now? I'm most grateful for the patience, kindness, and support of  my current VISTAs and my colleagues. I know I learn more from them than what I am able to share, but I hope to provide some of what I gained. Additionally, I am humbled and awed by the work of my fellow AmeriCorps VISTA Alums -- MA, NC, PA and beyond. Carly works for Corporation for National and Community Service in Washington, DC.  Sarah is a Civic Engagement Coordinator in Georgia. Jay is hosting a 2013-2014 AmeriCorps VISTA in Pennsylvania. There are other AmeriCorps VISTA Alums serving in Campus Compacts across our country. We are the next generation of leaders in this field. We are fighting the great fight, we are collectively raising the presence and value of our field, we are making our communities stronger, healthier and more just. We are doing it well and we are inviting others to join us.

So to wrap it up, Carly (who is working for CNCS, my former VISTA Leader in Boston, and a supportive mentor and dear friend), shared an article in the wake of the Boston Marathon tragedy. The article, written by Andrew Cohen and titled "You May Leave Boston, but Boston Never Leaves You," eloquently and emotionally captures the sentiments of many, including mine. And I also shamelessly offer, "You may complete a Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA term (or two, or three...), but Campus Compact and AmeriCorps never leaves you." From lessons learned in community to accomplishments shared, from forming friendships with community partners to hard discussions with fellow AmeriCorps VISTAs, from committing to a life of asset-based, mutually-beneificial and reciprocal partnerships to honoring, recognizing, and building social capital, the Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA experience is transformational and enduring.

A Different Break

Spring is here! And students all over the country are choosing to go on alternative break trips. A counter to more traditional spring or winter break trips, alternative breaks are centered around service. The trips often have a theme, usually a social issue like poverty or education, and the experience encourages participants to reflect, grow, and think critically.

Many of our VISTAs planned and executed Alternative Spring Breaks (ASBs) for their host campuses. This week we highlight a few of those trips! And if you are inspired reading about these experiences, plan to join NC Campus Compact's Alternative Service Experiences Institute on June 18-19 at High Point University.

LRU students prepare to paint.

For Ariel Mitchell, VISTA at Lenoir-Rhyne University, the Alternative Spring Break trip she planned and led was a departure from the norm. "We do not have a history of working with community partners in our community on Alternative Spring Breaks. Typically we go outside of the state to show students life in another community." This year, however, they formed a new relationship with Camp Dogwood, a local non-profit. Ariel tells the story of her alternative break experience:

"Camp Dogwood is a meeting and retreat center during the school year and a summer camp for the blind and visually impaired during the summer months. We took 16 students and 2 faculty members, Dr. Hank Weddington, and Dr. Kim Matthews, down to Camp Dogwood, located on Lake Norman, to do various service projects. With the guidance of the camp director, Susan King, the students painted screened-in porches, did some gardening at the front of the main office, and tightened screws on the bottom of chairs to make sure they were safe to sit in. The students stayed in the same quarters that any normal Camp Dogwood camper would stay in. They were even able to go out on Lake Norman in Dr. Matthews pontoon boat!

Overall there were about 4 screened in porches that were painted, about 500 chairs that were tightened for safe seating, and at least 20 flowers planted. Not only did the gardening students plant flowers, but they put down new wood edging for the gardens as well. By the end of the weekend the teaching fellows had made quite a visual change for the campus of Camp Dogwood. Even with all the hard work, the students still seemed relaxed by the beauty of Camp Dogwood. Sitting right on Lake Norman, there was a dock, a swimming area, birds, plants, and tress, that would take your breath away. Not to mention the beautiful weather that blessed the weekend with its presence. It was a wonderful weekend for service with a wonderful group of Lenoir-Rhyne students."

Mary Baldwin College VISTA, Leah Pallant, planned and led an ASB based around the issue of food insecurity. Leah and a dozen students wound their way through central Virginia and ventured north to Washington, D.C. They visited the Campus Kitchen at Washington and Lee University, prepared and served a meal at Martha's Table, visited a food co-op, volunteered at a food bank, and learned about urban gardening at Tricycle Gardens. Participants examined the relationship between poverty and food security and laid the foundation for a long-term relationship between Mary Baldwin students and the organizations they visited. Leah described students at Mary Baldwin as having an "exemplary drive, understanding, and hunger for knowledge."

Jeri poses with Dive Into Durham students.

Jeri Beckens, VISTA at Duke University, also led a local ASB experience called Dive Into Durham. The group of ten Duke students worked with local non-profit organizations including the Durham Branch of the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina where they bagged more than 2,100 meals. They also painted a conference room at the Community & Family Life Recreation Center at Lyon Park and prepared more than 200 meals at a homeless shelter. Over the course of the week the group logged more than 200 hours of service at seven different sites.

Wake Tech Community College VISTA, Jennifer Evans describes her ASB experience as being one she'll never forget. Jennifer tells her story best:

"Our Mission: Rebuild homes for people still affected by Hurricane Katrina.
Our Residence: Camp ReStore -- We were roughing it!
Our Partner: The St. Bernard Project

Jennifer Evans shows her AmeriCorps pride!

Six of us left on this journey together and we returned with shiny, new capacity-building skills, a new respect for the heart and courage of the people in New Orleans, and a greater understanding of exactly what AmeriCorps members can accomplish.

The St. Bernard Project restores homes and builds new homes to sell at a discounted price for people whose homes cannot be restored. We worked on a home that was going to be sold to a very worthy family. It was great to see that AmeriCorps members were in charge of the construction of the house! We bonded instantly and had lots of opportunities to discuss the different paths we have taken in AmeriCorps and how it's changed our lives for the better.

I am not the best painter in the world, but that was our charge for the week. We painted walls, borders, and ceilings. We learned to caulk and tape, and about the ins and outs of the business of building homes. We also spent a portion of a work day touring the levees and hearing stories from people who live directly across the street from them. We heard stories of husbands and wives who were separated for weeks and didn't know if their spouse was even alive and stories of people who climbed from their windows and hung onto whatever they could float on and the water took them to the roof of another house. We heard tales of recovery and the importance of our service in the recovery process.

We ended our week with a house-warming party for a woman who has been trying to rebuild her home since December 2005. Since 2005 she has been a victim of construction and insurance fraud twice and lost her husband while trying to rebuild their home themselves. But thanks to students, AmeriCorps members, and the St. Bernard project they got the job done!"

UNCW VISTA grows a Feast in Wilmington food deserts

Erin O'Donnell, an NC Campus Compact VISTA at UNCW, loves building relationships with people in the community. But at the moment, she is very excited about a machine.

After months of work navigating USDA and FIS regulations, permitting, and paperwork, Erin acquired an EBT machine for use at Feast Down East's mobile fresh market. "When it finally came (in March), I had to take a picture!" she confessed. EBT, or "electronic benefits transfer," enables an approved vendor to accept SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits, also known

Erin's EBT machine!

as food stamps.

Feast Down East, an organization that supports the growth of a local food system in the Wilmington area by connecting low-resource farmers with new markets, holds a fresh market every Friday in the public housing neighborhood Rankin Terrance. As a VISTA, Erin manages and publicizes the market, recruits and trains local residents to staff it, and develops nutrition education and other programs that supplement the Feast Down East mission of bringing healthy eating to food deserts. She also wrangles with federal bureaucracies when she has to.

"When I was going through the process (of applying for an EBT machine) I joked that I could write a novel," Erin quips. "But really I could write a trilogy."

The machine was first used at the April 5 market, and Erin expects more EBT transactions in the coming weeks as the weather warms and local produce is harvested. Erin has publicized the new payment option in the neighborhood with door hangers, and she is planning an "EBT celebration" on April 26 with music, games, and food samples to draw attention to the market and healthy eating.

Erin draws on her relationships with local residents and her training in public sociology to accomplish her work. Prior to becoming a VISTA, she studied with Feast Down East founder Leslie Hossfeld in UNCW's public sociology department, working with local residents to create a leadership development program. Erin also served as coordinator of the WHA-UNCW community campus, a joint project of the university and the Wilmington Housing Authority. "I was involved in this community for 1 1/2 years before I started as a VISTA," Erin explains, "so VISTA was a chance for me to continue my work with WHA."(Read a 2011 article Erin co-authored on the partnership.)

Erin (UNCW shirt) with other national service members on MLK Day.

Since her VISTA service began in November, Erin says she has grown "in ways I didn't expect. At first, I guess I wasn't really 'sold' on the idea of food deserts as a problem that could really exist." But, after living and working with people in an area "where it is really difficult to get food on their plates," what had been "an invisible problem" became very apparent. (See Erin talk about Wilmington food deserts.)

Her time working with Feast Down East has also raised her awareness of the intricacies of developing a local food system. Her work with the mobile market, she says, makes her "feel like I'm a pioneer," by helping to provide a new opportunity to residents. She's met many people who are experts in food systems and sustainable agriculture, including at Feast Down East's regional conference on March 1, which brought together farmers, institutional buyers and consumers (including folks from Rankin Terrace) for a day of workshops on such topics that ranged from consumer spending habits to mushroom cultivation.

A native of Fuquay-Varina, NC, Erin plans to stay in the Wilmington area once her VISTA service ends and she finishes her master's thesis - on using leadership development to build community capacity - in December. "It's nerve-wracking, what's going on with budgets," she says of public service employment prospects. But she is confident she'll find new ways to serve.

Lighting it up - more VISTA project highlights!

MLK Day of Service was a big event for many of our VISTAs this term, as reported in a January blog post. VISTA Takira Dale, for example, helped to coordinate a MLK Day Read-In that drew 70 volunteers from 3 Winston-Salem-area campuses (Wake Forest, Winston-Salem State, and Salem College) to work with over 50 children, ages 4 -10. Participating kids were from Title I schools or agencies serving at-risk youth. The college students served as reading buddies for the day long event, which included fun activities geared to literacy, safety, civil rights history, and healthy eating.

VISTA Tiara Pugh and her supervisor work on MLK Day.

Elizabeth City State University, VISTAs Marion Hudson and Tiara Pugh coordinated an MLK Day event with the help of funds from NC Campus Compact's MLK Day Challenge Grant. The event drew 180 volunteers who served during the day at a dozen different host sites. The event was a partnership with two other local higher ed institutions, College of the Albermarle and Mid-Atlantic Christian University. 

Lenoir-Rhyne University VISTA Ariel Mitchell reports exciting new programs with her community partner, Centro Latino of Hickory, including a kids tutoring program that began in January and a new elder care program called "Adopto Un Abuelito," which will pair Centro Latino volunteers with elderly residents in the community to provide food assistance and companionship. Partners on the project include Meals on Wheels, the Backpack Project, and a local church. Having convened partners and given input on program design, Ariel will focus now on organizing food-donation drives to support the project.

At Virginia Tech, VISTA Alejandra O'Connor has implemented several improvements to ESL and citizenship programs offered by the Roanoke Redevelopment & Housing Authority (RRHA) and the Coalition for Refugee Resettlement (CRR), a Virginia Tech student organization. Alejandra worked with the RRHA to develop a statement of program goals, and she created a basic reading comprehension and citizenship knowledge assessment to be used in ESL classes. Happily, two of the students Alejandra supports passed their exam and became citizens this period.


Saarah Abdul-Rauf, UNC Chapel-Hill VISTA, established community mentors at Volunteers for Youth (VFY) in Chapel Hill. Saarah worked with the SMART mentoring program, a group at UNC previous providing mentor support for VFY, to transition to a community-based mentoring program.

During the past three months, some VISTAs also supported innovative local and regional alternative breaks. More on those in a future post!

VISTAs report project successes in the new year

NC Campus Compact VISTAs recently submitted their Interim Reports detailing activities and outcomes from January 1 - March 31. They have done so much good work that we can't share it all here, but we will share some highlights!

VISTA Sara Brown (kneeling in jeans) with Kotlowitz and students.

Sara Brown, UNC-Asheville's VISTA, had an op-ed published in a local Asheville newspaper, The Urban News. In her piece, "An Unheard Voice - Cost Over Kids," Sara urges school district decision-makers to clarify plans for students and staff of the William Randolph School, an alternative school serving middle and high school students who are at-risk of not graduating. Sara has worked since August to strengthen a partnership between UNCA and Randolph, engaging college student volunteers as tutors and mentors and organizing enrichment opportunities for Randolph students on UNCA's campus, like a February 21 visit with Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here.

Sally Parlier, Durham Technical Community College VISTA, was responsible for opening the Durham Tech Campus Harvest (DTCH) Food Pantry. Since opening on January 22 the Food Pantry has had over 750 visits and served more than 150 individuals. They've also collected approximately 2,400 lbs of food and raised $1,761 in cash donations. Sally has also developed a new partnership with Jordan High School. Her work has received attention from local media, as in this February report on WTVD:

Before finishing her term of service in February and starting a VISTA Leader position in Tennessee, UNCG VISTA Anya Piotrowski shared her magnum opus: the IRC - Tranisition Greensboro Community Garden Manual. The manual is an incredible accumulation of organic and permaculture garden techniques, planting schedules, garden design documents, and volunteer orientation materials that will enable future garden coordinators to manage the site (and local volunteers) year-round. If you are interested in a copy, contact Anya.

At Warren Wilson College, VISTA Jacqui Trillo reports exciting news: her partner organization Homeward Bound has hired a part-time Volunteer and Donations Coordinator who is taking on some of the duties Jacqui managed during the fall. Jacqui has helped the new staff member transition into the position by training her on volunteer and donation management materials, systems, and tools that Jacqui developed in the fall. Jacqui writes, "I know that my work last semester was constructive because some of the ideas she first suggested were ones I had already either implemented successfully or had tried and found to be unsuitable for the needs of HB." Capacity-building!

Elizabeth Corney at ECU reports that she has worked with the university's Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations to secure a $2,000 donation that will support the Campus Kitchen project next year. To help win the gift, Elizabeth compiled service numbers, photos, and a letter. In this final year of VISTA support for the CK project at ECU, Elizabeth has made sustainability a priority, creating a work study and a graduate assistant position to support the project and preparing a Campus Kitchen manual which will guide future coordinators.

Check the blog later this week for more project highlights!