VISTA-led alternative break trips and “service staycations” expand student learning, service

NC Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTAs helped lead Alternative Spring Break trips near and far this past month, engaging students both in service and in meaningful reflections of the experience to connect with their day-to-day lives. Each ASB trip built on the VISTA's primary project focus: k-12 education, economic opportunity, or food security.

VISTA Dalton Hoffer co-led a trip to the national historic city of Philadelphia for packed week of activities and service opportunities. The group served four different community organizations in the area: Philabundance Food Bank, Jewish Relief Agency, Philadelphia Reads, and Cradles to Crayons. These agencies allowed them to learn how Philadelphia is working on improving its literacy rate and interacting with volunteers. The students then took that knowledge back to Robeson County which also holds a low literacy statistic. Six of the 9 participating students are mentors in the Brave Impact Mentoring Program Dalton helped create. Focusing on leadership and citizenship, Dalton said the trip "allowed [the mentors] to work with and see how other partners utilize volunteers and interact with students" and led to conversations about how to bring that work back to Robeson county and inspire a sense of pride in that work throughout the community. Check out Dalton's video recap of UNCP's trip.

VISTA Anna Donze at Wake Forest University focused her trip in the community by hosting a Staycation at her community partner site, El Buen Pastor Latino Community Services. Typically the site struggles during WFU's Spring Break as it loses the majority of its volunteer tutors for a week. The 7 WFU students on the trip served as tutors for the duration of the week, played with and supervised the elementary students during their free time and volunteered in the garden. One WFU student said of the experience, "We are helping nurture, mentor, and guide our next generation of youth. We are putting our heads together to care for the young people that will impact this world in years to come." They also designed and led a "Vocab Bowl" for the students to practice some vocabulary words that they may not use in the classroom, as the majority of the students speak only Spanish at home. Anna not only helped coordinate the trip, but also took note of the week's highlights to incorporate them next year for Staycation round two.

VISTA Takira Dale with the Duke Community Service Center also stayed close to home to host her Dive into Durham ASB trip. During this 5 day service experience, Takira and her supervisor, Assistant Director of CSC Programs Dominique Redmond, led 10 students working with various community agencies including Duke Gardens, Urban Ministries of Durham, the Durham Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity, Genesis Home, Lakewood Community Garden, and the West End Mobile Market. These agencies are committed to fighting hunger and homelessness in Durham, and align with Takira's primary food security project through the Community Service Center. After the service events, Takira led reflection discussions and panels, and created a contact list for these student volunteers to stay engaged in the community throughout their undergraduate career and into their futures. She said of the week, “One interesting aspect of this ASB was experiencing the wide variety of people working on solving issues of homelessness, hunger and poverty. All these organizations may have different methods but most are surprisingly interconnected.”

WCU students conducting food
assessment surveys for the Lower
Nine Ward Food Coalition

VISTA Willie Jones also focused on food security and homelessness for his ASB, a complement to his primary project at Western Carolina University where he is establishing a volunteer gleaning program and reinvigorating the campus garden. Willie and his supervisor Dr. Lane Perry, Director of the Center for Service Learning, led a group of 17 students to New Orleans to work with Green Light, The Green Project, and Lower Nine, all organizations who's focuses are to alleviate hunger and homelessness. Willie says, "This was the first time WCU has traveled to NOLA and the first time [WCU] has worked with any of these partners." The Center for Service Learning is currently developing a system that will allow the university to have multiple alternative break locations that can be rotated out on a yearly or bi-yearly basis. "This way," Willie says, "the university will be able to maintain the relationship they built with these communities." Willie served as the food insecurity and gardening expert for the group.

ECU students maintaining a rain
garden at a local elementary school

VISTA Shifra Sered co-chaperoned a group of 9 East Carolina University students on their ASB trip to Carteret County, North Carolina, where they stayed at Camp Albemarle; ECU's long-time ASB host. The group served primarily at NC Coastal Federation, but also served with Habitat for Humanity and the Hope Mission soup kitchen. "By living in an intentional community and learning to rely on one another for support," Shifra said, "we were able to delve into service and educational experiences that challenged us to evaluate and articulate our values surrounding community, inequality, social responsibility and environmental justice." The group immersed themselves in the experience in part by limiting their food budget to the current food stamp allocation, and by adopting the sustainable lifestyle practices they learned through their service. Shifra designed and facilitated educational and reflection activities for the students as well. She says that after the trip, "We charged all of the student participants...to design and implement a sustainability project back at ECU...[which will hopefully] lead to a student-run sustainability club on campus."

VISTA Bevelyn Ukah and her supervisor James Shields, led a group of Guilford College Bonner Leaders to Charleston, South Carolina and St. Helena Island to learn about the history and contemporary realities of the Gulla Geechie nation, specifically as they relate to race and class relations in the area. The goal of this trip was to give the students the practice working in teams to analyze poverty and diversity using place-based critical thinking. 

NC Campus Compact's very own Office Manager, Rene Summers, also co-led a group of 9 Elon University students on a mission trip all the way to St. James Jamaica to serve with an organization called Mustard Seed Communities, which serves children with special needs. The group spent part of their trip with the children and the other part completing projects ranging from light construction work, painting, farming and landscaping alongside the community and MSC staff. Rene and the group arrived safely back in Elon this week, but they will continue to hold meetings to reflect on their experiences.

All of these VISTAs have been planning their trips for months. Though each of project may seem different, the goal of all is to engage students in a deeper conversation with and understanding of their communities. Whether the groups went North to Philly, South to NOLA, stayed in the state, or stayed right in their neighborhood, NC Campus Compact VISTAs are shifting the conversation these students are having and preparing the next generation of leaders and community organizers.   

More information about organizing and implementing alternative break programs can be found on the NC Campus Compact website on our Alternative Break Resource page.   

One student from from Takira Dale's Dive into Durham aptly sums up the ASB mindset: “Volunteering is so easy and refreshing, we should do it more often…I have no good reason to not be doing more.”

2013-14 VISTA Orientation

Each year North Carolina Campus Compact invites new VISTAs and their supervisors to join us to share ideas, get to know one another and us, and learn about what it means to be a NC Campus Compact VISTA. On Friday, August 16, seventeen VISTAs, their supervisors, and their community partners met at Elon University for NC Campus Compact VISTA Orientation.

To kick off the day and break the ice the group got to arrange themselves as though the room was a map of North Carolina. Groups introduced themselves and talked briefly about their projects. The group also participated in an Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator session led by NC Campus Compact Executive Director, Dr. Lisa Keyne and discussed different ways they can work together and use differences in their type preferences as strengths rather than challenges to overcome.

Dalton Hoffer and Aubrey Swett talk VADs.

In the afternoon Mary Morrison, Assistant Dean of Students and Director of the Kernodle Center for Service Learning and Community Engagement joined the group to lead a session on Making Campus and Community Partnerships Work. Afterwards, during breakout sessions returning VISTAs Takira Dale (Duke), Christina D'Aulerio (Queens), Marion Hudson (ECSU), and Ariel Mitchell (LRU) moderated conversations with the new cohorts about case studies and professional expectations. They also shared their knowledge about everyday life as an NC Campus Compact VISTA and how to live on the VISTA stipend.

VISTA Profile: Takira Dale

Takira (2nd row, 3rd from right) & students
at Elon University's Hunger Dialogue

Takira Dale was not new to Winston-Salem or Wake Forest University when she started there as a NC Campus Compact VISTA this past August. She graduated in May of 2012 with a BA in Sociology and a minor in American Ethnic Studies and still proudly and enthusiastically identifies as a Demon Deacon. While at Wake she participated in a number of student volunteer organizations. She also got a chance to participate in a service trip to South Africa where she worked in a primary school. While there she encountered poverty and hunger on a scale she had not previously experienced. Her time in South Africa and her volunteer work while at Wake helped motivate her to work towards real change in her community and on her campus and ultimately lead her to NC Campus Compact and national service.

Life as a VISTA at Wake has been very rewarding for Takira though she says she wasn't quite sure what to expect when she started her service. She describes the campus community as cozy and says the culture of service at Wake is embedded in the fibers of the university. She finds the student body and the campus community as a whole to be a wonderful reflection of the school motto, Pro Humanitate (for humanity). Takira has found she's learned a lot about herself both professionally and personally over her year as a VISTA and feels the experience has helped her more clearly see the challenges facing communities all over the country.

Turkeypalooza

This year her focus as a NC Campus Compact VISTA has been Healthy Futures and Education. She's worked with Campus Kitchen and El Buen Pastor. Through her work Wake has developed a stronger relationship with its surrounding community. Wake Forest community partners have received an increase in the amount of food donated to serve their clients and have benefited from better trained and supported student volunteers. Takira is particularly proud of the N.E.R.D. (Network of Educational Resources and Development) program she created. The program trains and supports students to be effective, informed, and culturally competent volunteers. She's also been involved in campus events like Turkeypalooza, an event hosted by Wake Forest Campus Kitchen. During the event faculty, staff, and students work together to prepare holiday dishes at the Campus Kitchen facilities. Volunteers then deliver the prepared food to organizations all over Winston-Salem.

Takira describes her experience this year as a Wake Forest VISTA as "amazing!" Because her time at Wake Forest was so positive she decided to continue as a VISTA for an additional year and take a step outside of her comfort zone at Wake Forest and apply to another NC Campus Compact VISTA host site. Takira talks about her decision-making process, "I thought Duke would be a perfect fit for me to gain more experience at a site focusing on healthy futures and because of it's location in Durham. Like most campuses, students rarely venture outside of their collegiate bubble. After helping to immerse students at Wake into the Winston-Salem community, I thought that it would be great to do the same at Duke. I am excited to learn more about North Carolina and Durham."

Turkeypalooza

Takira hails from Henderson, NC, a small town of about 15,000 people on the border of North Carolina and Virginia. She shares her home with Kerr Lake and The Peanut Roaster (makers of delicious peanut flavors such as Ginger Wasabi, Ranch Bacon, and Carolina Barbecue), and the location for one of the first Wal-mart Super Centers within the three surrounding counties. She says growing up on a dirt-road in a place like Henderson was instrumental in shaping her passion for social justice issues and helping others. In her free time she loves to cook and try new recipes. She also enjoys spending time with her family and friends, traveling, and listening to live music.

MLK project updates and recent site visits

The blog has been quiet for a couple of weeks, but our VISTAs have been busy. We have news to share from MLK Day service events and recent visits to four VISTA host sites.

Though some MLK project sites had plans disrupted by winter weather, our VISTAs supported much successful service on MLK weekend. In Raleigh, VISTA Jennifer Evans served at Wake Tech Community College's meal packaging event with Stop Hunger Now and later as part of the United Way's service day. Check out the local news report on Wake Tech's event, which features Jennifer's supervisor, Melody Wiggins, director of WTCC's Office of Volunteerism and Leadership. In Wilmington, Erin O'Donnell (Feast Down East) served with a Cape Fear Crop Mob project at LINC farm, working with local AmeriCorps members from Food Corps and other VISTAs from the QENO project. In Winston-Salem, Takira Dale (Wake Forest) helped organize the annual MLK Day Read-In, which collected new and donated books for kids and enlisted the help of community members and students from Wake Forest, Winston-Salem State, and Salem College. In Elizabeth City, VISTAs Marion Hudson and Tiara Pugh coordinated the service component of a day-long celebration, also partnering with other local higher education institutions. These are just a few of the great projects our VISTAs supported for this national day of service.

We have also made several site visits to meet with NC Campus Compact VISTAs, supervisors, and community partners to learn more about the things our members get done.

Sally (L) and VISTA Leader Rachel Rogers

First, we braved the ice to visit second-year VISTA Sally Parlier at Durham Tech Community College. Focusing on food security issues on her campus and in the community, Sally has worked with community partner Briggs Avenue Community Garden to develop plots for DTCC students and staff, coordinate volunteers for garden workdays and win over $1700 in grant funding to expand the garden. She has also started an on-campus food pantry to serve some of the low-income students on campus. Check out this great story in the Durham Herald. For the rest of her term, Sally will continue to connect DTCC with the Briggs Avenue garden, refine systems she's created for managing the on-campus food distribution, and build structures so the college can continue this work beyond the VISTA term.

Our visit to Chapel Hill offered the chance for a double-dip: we met with our community-based VISTA Monica Palmeira at the Jackson Center and with second-year VISTA Saarah Abdul-Rauf (UNC Chapel Hill). At the Jackson Center (located in the Northside neighborhood in the historic St. Joseph C.M.E. church), Monica has created key systems to manage the Heavenly Groceries food pantry, including a comprehensive volunteer handbook and internship positions that will be filled by UNC Chapel Hill's new Bonner Scholars. Monica also helped plan a community-wide civil rights celebration in November. Check out this local news video of the Jackson Center's civil rights photo exhibit, a center piece of that event.

Monica has an open-door policy at the Jackson Center.

Monica is now working to develop other partnerships with university units, including an upcoming wills clinic with the Black Law Student Association, and she is designing more internships and systems to coordinate volunteers for other Jackson Center programs. Also check out this recent UNC Chapel Hill spotlight article on Monica's supervisor and Center co-founder Della Pollock.

VISTA Saarah Abdul-Rauf spends time each week at her community partner, Volunteers for Youth. Saarah works to support UNC's student-led SMART mentoring program, which provides nearly 30 mentors to young people in VFY's mentoring program. Saarah has coordinated events; created an evaluation to assess satisfaction of mentors, mentees, and family members; and helped to review and refine the mentor training curriculum. Saarah is also the primary liason to the Community Action Center in Pembroke, NC, which is a key partner for the four UNC alternative break trips that visit the area each year. She is exploring other ways UNC can support this community and has created an alternative break partner evaluation that will be used with all break community partners.

Takira with a Demon Deacon.

Finally, this week we visited Takira Dale at Wake Forest University. Takira has created volunteer coordination and operations manuals for the Campus Kitchen project, and she visits kitchen partners regularly to review delivery schedules and offerings and to discuss how the project can better serve the food needs of partner clients. One new effort that has emerged from these visits is the kitchen's nutrition education program, which Takira is now developing. She is also creating a comprehensive training curriculum for students who volunteer as tutors or mentors with children and youth. This effort has led to NERD (Network of Educational Resources and Development), a new coalition of student organizations that undertake tutoring/mentoring activities.

We had the chance to visit a key kitchen and tutoring program partner, El Buen Pastor, a community agency serving Latino families in Winston-Salem's Old Town area. The agency's director was very excited about the ways WFU is connecting to her agency, and she sees the VISTA resource as a great support.

Thanks to all these VISTAs, supervisors, and partners for your hospitality, and keep up the great work!

VISTAs organize, serve on MLK Day

Over the MLK Day weekend, many NC Campus Compact VISTAs will coordinate service events for their campus and community host sites. Others will serve on projects with fellow AmeriCorps members.

At Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, VISTA Takira Dale is supporting the MLK Read-In Day on January 19th to promote literacy and service to young children. Participating children will receive a book on the theme of civil-rights, and volunteer reading buddies will read and complete community service activities with the kids. Takira is working in partnership with other national service members from HandsOn Northwest NC and student volunteers from WFU and partner campuses Winston-Salem State University and Salem College. Read about the event in the Winston Salem Chronicle.

At Lenoir-Rhyne University VISTA Ariel Mitchell expects over 50 volunteers to serve in honor of MLK Day at 5 community sites, including two local soup kitchens and her community partner, Centro Latino.


In Durham, VISTA Jeri Beckens is managing a canned food drive to help local food banks, part of Duke University's larger MLK Day of Service event. Led by former Campus Compact VISTA (and current Duke Durham Neighborhood Partnership staff member) Neil Hoefs, Duke's MLK Million Meals Event sets a goal to engage 1,000 volunteers to package thousands of meals through Stop Hunger Now.

In Wilmington, Feast Down East VISTA member Erin O'Donnell will team up with a local Food Corps volunteer to organize community and campus volunteers to build the LINC garden. LINC is a local non-profit that helps ex-offenders and at-risk youth become productive community members.

At Elizabeth City State University VISTAs Tiara Pugh and Marion Hudson are using an NC Campus Compact MLK Day grant to organize a event with two other local campuses, Mid-Atlantic University and College of the Albermarle to carry out an MLK Day of Service at various community sites.

In Chapel Hill, two Campus Compact VISTA's, the Jackson Center's Monica Palmiera and UNC Chapel Hill's Saarah Abdul-Rauf, are working with the Blue Ribbon Mentor Advocate Program to host a discussion dinner in honor of MLK Day so participants can talk about how to improve education for children.

A number of other Campus Compact VISTA members will coordinate service events in their communities this weekend, including Queens VISTA Christina D'Aulerio, UNC Greensboro VISTA Anya Piotrowski, Durham Tech VISTA Sally Parlier, Wake Tech VISTA Jennifer Evans, Virginia Tech VISTA Wyatt Taylor, UNC Asheville VISTA Sara Brown, and ECU VISTA Elizabeth Corney.