Adventures in Alternative Spring Break

As college students look for more ways to give back, Alternative Spring Break (ASB) trips provide the opportunity for students to be immersed in service with local communities. This year, North Carolina Campus Compact VISTAs were part of four different trips. The VISTAs were involved at all stages of the process, from coordinating volunteer sites, to planning meals, to recruiting students. Student volunteers gave over 1,110 hours of service during their ASB trips!

The WFU students and VISTAs

At Wake Forest University, VISTA members Natasha Vos and Naijla Faizi planned a week's worth of activities for four students in the Winston-Salem area. This "staycation" allowed participants to give 28 hours of service to the community at five different service sites! Over the course of the week, the students volunteered at education, food insecurity, and health-related non profits. Not only did Natasha and Naijla plan the service the event, they also planned all meals, extra-curricular, and reflection activities. The small group of students provided the opportunity for deep engagement and reflection. At El Buen Pastor, the Wake ASB group prepared quesadillas for 75 children and later provided homework help. Over the course of the week, the group also volunteered at community gardens and a food bank.

At East Carolina University, VISTA member Hannah Paek planned an ASB "staycation" for 12 students in the Greenville community. The trip focused on poverty and youth. During the trip, the group stayed at the Greenville Community Shelter and over the course of the week, the students learned about poverty through simulation activities, including managing grocery shopping and meal preparation on a food stamp budget, and managing the local bus system. The students volunteered with Sparkle Her Night, an organization that helps low income high school girls obtain prom dresses, tutored children at a community center, and interacted with and prepared meals for shelter clients. The students had the opportunity to engage in a panel discussion about poverty in North Carolina. One ECU student called his ASB experience "humbling, passionate, and empowering."

ECU students sort donated clothing at the shelter.

An ECU student tutors at a community center. 

The team of HPU students and VISTAs packaging meals at Food and Friends.

At High Point University, a trio of VISTAs planned an ASB trip to Washington DC for 14 Bonner Leaders from HPU. Our VISTAs have been working with the Bonner Leaders all year, developing their skills and reflecting on their service experience. The trip focused on issues of hunger and homelessness. The group prepared nutritious food packets at Food and Friends, a non profit that serves those facing challenging illnesses, met with the National Coalition on Homelessness, and toured Washington D.C. with a focus on poverty issues.

At UNC-Greensboro, VISTA member Kali Hackett served as the learning partner for an ASB trip to Atlanta that focused on education and economic opportunity. As the students engaged in service, Kali served as a resource for students and trip leaders. Over the course of the week, the students worked with elementary school children, served and prepared meals at a community site, and worked on a beautification project.

The impact of these trips goes deeper than student's brief encounters with service. This haiku, courtesy of the of WFU trip, reflects on the ASB experience:

A week of service,

gardens, kids, community,

impact starts local.

WFU students plant seedling at the Neal Community Garden.

Hump Month Blog #4: Note to self: a beloved community doesn’t have to be perfect

This is our fourth and final post in our Hump Month blog series! All month, our 2014-15 VISTAs shared their thoughts at the half-way point of their 12-month service commitment.

Please note: Any opinions expressed on the VISTA VIEW blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views, opinions, or policies of North Carolina Campus Compact, the AmeriCorps VISTA program or the Corporation for National and Community Service.

By Hannah Paek

AmeriCorps VISTA at East Carolina University 

Hannah with the volunteers on
Make a Difference Day

Ever since I got the email from Perdita asking for a Hump Month blog post, I had been racking my brains on what to write about. At first, I was worried that I would have nothing to write about. But now I realize that that might have been an “easier” problem – I could have made something up, for all anyone would know. The actual problem, though, is that there are too many blog-worthy topics. Do I write about this crazy period of transition that both endlessly frustrates me but also humbles me? Should I write about my wonderful co-workers and supervisor who have helped me (and are still helping me) get through these transitions, and discover and unpack my self-identity? Do I focus on my work in my office at East Carolina University, or should I share more about the sense of community that I feel in “West” Greenville? 

I decided to try to incorporate all of the above into one blog post – so bear with me, it might get messy.

Exactly one week before MLK Day of Service, everything that could go wrong, went wrong – some were my mistakes, others were things that were out of my control. Whoever’s fault it was, I was the one that had to rectify all of those mistakes. I thought that because Make a Difference Day went pretty smoothly (some bumps here and there), MLK Day would go just as smoothly, if not more. Nope. Having everything blow up in my face a week before D-day really freaked me out. All the way up until the day of service, I was nervous. This was going to be bigger than Make a Difference Day; this was a day celebrating Dr. King; this was an entire day that I organized. If it was a bad day, I would be R U I N E D.

Not really.

ECU Students Volunteering
on MLK Day

The day went as smoothly as any day of service could go. We had a solid kick-off with breakfast, speeches, and a brief pre-service reflection activity. Students went off to their service sites, then participated in a post-service reflection activity. This activity involved them drawing out their own vision for a “Beloved Community” and coming up with 3-5 ways that they wanted to live out this vision. Students came back for a closing ceremony where they had an opportunity to share their illustrations and their commitments.

Numbers-wise, it was a successful day – we nearly doubled Make a Difference Day’s numbers and last year’s MLK Day. But what made this day particularly memorable for me was the blow-up from the week before and the post-service reflection activity.

This day of service wasn’t about me. It was about the students, it was about community. The theme for this day of service was “Beloved Community.” I wanted the day to be about envisioning this and living this out. Yet there I was, a week before the day of service, crying with frustration because of everything that went wrong and thinking up all the ways that this day of service could go even more wrong.

I almost let the logistics and the administrative details make me forget about the meaning of this day. I almost let my desire for a perfect day tear me away from why I’m in this field to begin with.

At the closing ceremony, a few students from each project site shared about their experience. Hearing them make their own connections from their project to Dr. King’s vision for the “Beloved Community,” and listening to them talk about what “Beloved Community” means and looks like – this! This is why I love what I do and this is what inspires me.

2015 MLK Day of
Service at ECU

You know how in interviews, the employer asks the potential employee “What’s one of your weaknesses?” and one of the clichéd responses is “I’m a perfectionist.”? (*rolls eyes*) Well, that’s me. (*rolls eyes again*) I don’t think I truly realized why that’s a weakness until I sat down with my supervisor, post-blow-up, to unpack this.

As a young professional, I think it’s easy to let perfectionism get the best of you – especially if you’ve been a perfectionist for the past 20+ years. You want things to go well, you want to get recognized, you don’t want to be known as THAT woman/man that messed up, etc. But what I’ve been realizing is that sometimes those mistakes and those “failures” (for lack of a better word) are very much necessary to sober you up and keep you focused. In this field of work, especially, where education, children, social justice, and community involvement intermingle; it’s important for you not to get caught up in the numbers or the attention.

I am here to serve. I am not here to teach, to help, or to advise – because that would imply that I’m better in some way. I’m not. I’m here to grow and learn alongside everyone else through what I do – and that’s service. Individuals and communities always make mistakes. But it’s how you respond to those mistakes that determines what kind of individual and community you build. So embrace those imperfections instead of being critical of yourself and others because of those flaws. Embrace them to raise yourself and others up into a stronger community.

Impacting Communities through Strategic Partnerships: East Carolina University and Third Street Community Center

North Carolina Campus Compact sponsors 20 AmeriCorps VISTA projects throughout the state of to develop sustainable partnerships and programs between higher education institutions and community partners.

East Carolina University acts as host to one such partnership between its Volunteer and Service Learning Center (VSLC) and the newly established Third Street Community Center (TSCC), located in Greenville, North Carolina.

TSCC created this video to highlight its partnership with ECU. The piece includes interviews with TSCC's Executive Director, Walter Strathy; the VSLC's Associate Director, Nichelle Shuck; and the NC Campus Compact VISTA, Shifra Sered, who supported the partnership during the 2013-14 project year!

This partnership is now in its second year, and the current AmeriCorps VISTA member, Hannah Paek, is working to develop a neighborhood-wide collaborative of agencies that provide educational after-school programming, including TSCC. 

To learn more about our other VISTA projects, and about NC Campus Compact, follow our VISTA View blog, and subscribe to our Email Digest by entering your email on the bottom left side of the page!

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!