Blast from the Past photo slideshow
VISTA bloggers reflect on a year of service
Alumni Spotlight on Neil Hoefs (Duke VISTA, 2010-12)
View the complete newsletter here.
Blast from the Past! Photo Slideshow
VISTA bloggers reflect on a year of service
This summer, our VISTA VIEW blog published a series of member reflections. This project was the brainchild of our VISTA Leader Carla Davis, who solicited and edited the pieces. Each member's voice and story is distinct, but reading these reflections together reveals how much VISTA can be a year of challenge and growth.
The complete series:
Sarah Cohn: “A
Guide to Finding (Non-Student) Housing in Chapel Hill”
Devin Corrigan: “Looking Back while Moving Forward: Reflections from an "organized" VISTA”
Camille Smith: “There is something special about Southeast Raleigh”
Jess-Mara Jordan: “Obsessed with Step”
Brittany Johnson: “AmeriCorps VISTA: The Key to Opportunity”
Shifra Sered: “Let’s Talk Taboo: My experiences with race and poverty as an NC Campus Compact VISTA”
Devin Corrigan: “Looking Back while Moving Forward: Reflections from an "organized" VISTA”
Camille Smith: “There is something special about Southeast Raleigh”
Jess-Mara Jordan: “Obsessed with Step”
Brittany Johnson: “AmeriCorps VISTA: The Key to Opportunity”
Shifra Sered: “Let’s Talk Taboo: My experiences with race and poverty as an NC Campus Compact VISTA”
Alumni Spotlight on Neil Hoefs (Duke VISTA, 2010 - 2012)
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| Neil during his VISTA salad days in 2010. |
So Neil, what’s
new with you?
I just got
back from Seattle, Washington, where I was with a group of Duke undergrads who spent
their summer in Seattle working at various non-profit community partner sites,
volunteering 40 hours a week. I was an on-site coordinator for that program… a
program called Duke Engage Seattle. And now I’m just starting my new position
with the Duke Durham Neighborhood Partnership where I’ve been working as a
fellow for the past 2 years. I’m actually now a program coordinator in this
office.
I’ll
continue some of the work I did as a fellow and as a VISTA, working with Duke
undergraduates and connecting them with service opportunities and focusing my
energies on connecting with the DDNP partners.
Can you tell
me a little more about the Duke Durham Neighborhood Partnership?
The Duke
Durham Neighborhood Partnership is a partnership between Duke University and
some of the neighborhoods that are close by within walking or biking distance.
We have a relationship with the neighborhood association presidents and stay in
regular communication with them, and we are also in the position to leverage
some of Duke’s resources, whether they’re monetary or volunteer resources.
We’ll plug students into service opportunities with agencies in these
neighborhoods, that includes schools and nonprofits. Our main focus is on
affordable housing efforts and on youth mentorship. We have a great relationship
with Durham Public Schools.
I should
also mention the DDNP is a unit of the Office of Durham and Regional Affairs (community.duke.edu), and the Community Service
Center, where I served as a VISTA, is our sister office.
You’ve told me often that you like living in
Durham.
Oh, I love living in Durham!
What made you want to stay after you finished your VISTA
term? What are some of the things you love about Durham?
It’s an incredibly friendly community, and it has small town
feel.... I really felt there was a sense of community here. And I was coming in at an interesting time because
- even within the past four years I’ve seen tremendous growth and influx and
flow of people into downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods. So there just
seems to be a lot of energy right now, especially among the small business
community, a lot of social entrepreneurial efforts, and Durham can kind of be
seen as an incubator for innovation. So it’s just an exciting place.
So now do you consider yourself a “Dookie”?
Oh boy… I would consider myself a Dookie as far as
basketball is concerned. But -- and this is off the record -- I’m definitely
still an Ohio State football fan. I guess that doesn’t have to be off the record.
Yes, I’m still very much a fan of The Ohio State University.
You grew up and went to school in Ohio. How did you decide
to come down to North Carolina as a VISTA?
Well, VISTA was always something that had been on my mind since
I graduated from Ohio State in 2008. I had interviewed with NC Campus Compact when I was looking for employment and I was being
considered for a position at a site, but for whatever reason, funding was cut
to that program. The same day I found that out, I got a call from the American
Cancer Society in Columbus in their Ohio division offering me a job and that
was a wonderful thing too. So I had VISTA in the back of my mind while I worked
for ACS for 2 years. Then, I decided I wanted to go a different direction. At ACS I had worked with a couple of Relay of Life events and I
really enjoyed working with college students, so I came back to my idea of NC
Campus Compact, and when I pursued it, I had the chance to come and be a VISTA
at Duke. And I thought, “Wow, how great would this be!” and sure enough I got
hired, and it really opened up a lot of doors that wouldn’t have been opened
otherwise.
What some of your best memories or projects you are proud of
from your VISTA years? Don’t make me look through your old reports.
Oh, do not do that! I would say planning some of the service
events, especially the MLK Million Meals event. It was a challenging experience
but it was also really motivating and I got to see the event grow over time and
engage more students.
But a huge highlight was communicating with some of the
other VISTAs and hearing about their work. It was really inspiring and also
generated a lot of ideas about how we could improve the things we were doing at
Duke, hearing from VISTAs all across the state, and there was a sense of
camaraderie too. It could have been that we were also in the same position in
that weird gray area, kind of bizarre place working in the university offices
but still be considered just an affiliate. It’s kind of an odd role because
you’re somewhere in between.
Since you’ve stayed on at Duke, you’ve always been willing
to be an alumni contact for your VISTA successors. Thanks for that.
Why do you do it? What advice do you share with them?
The most important thing you can bring to that role is
excitement about the position. I am always really excited when I meet with the
VISTA volunteers who are coming in at Duke, just describing the city. Durham
is an awesome place and I was really pumped to connect them to resources in the
area, send along links to housing or ways to do things cheaply, because that
can be potentially intimidating. It’s an opportunity to connect them to
community partners who are doing great things and to other departments and
administrators at the university.
So how are you going to celebrate AmeriCorps 20th
Anniversary on Friday?
I didn’t even know that AmeriCorps was celebrating its… 20th
Anniversary? Oh man, well, I’m probably going to bake a funfetti cake.
Did you say a “funfetti” cake? What is that?
Oh, you’ve been deprived! It’s a box cake with those little
rainbow flakes. Most people have fond memories. Actually, my first year as an
AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer, during volunteer appreciation week, I baked like
250 funfetti cupcakes and distributed them on Duke’s West Campus on the plaza.
Just as a blanket thank you to our volunteers.
So, this Friday I’ll celebrate the 20th
anniversary of AmeriCorps by baking an imaginary funfetti cake to be
distributed to all AmeriCorps members, past, present, and future, and saying,
“Thank you for your service.”
So besides
cupcake distribution, we are trying to do more to help current VISTA members develop
“career-ready skills.” What about your VISTA experience helped you move forward
professionally?
Well, this
sounds really basic but I think: listening. We have such a natural instinct to
just talk or worry about how you’re going to respond to something. So I think
the greatest bit of knowledge I gained is the fact you need to slow down, you
need to listen and understand that every conversation is a learning
opportunity.
I know
that’s not exactly what you’re going for. You want some kind of turn-key, like,
oh if I plug into this, it will be a game changer. But if you’re just mindful
and aware of your surroundings that could open up all kinds of avenues.
Even to have
some creativity in your role. The VISTA Assignment Description… it is black and
white, but it’s not at the same time. There are still opportunities for you to
take what’s on that page and fulfill your responsibilities while still
considering your interests as well. I think each person brings unique talents
to the table and you can have an opportunity to have those bloom if you’re just
mindful.
