VISTA Quarterly Report: Leveraging Resources for Long-term Impacts

Here's an update on how our VISTA members are mobilizing North Carolina's communities and

VISTA Willie Jones grows garden
program, Photo Credit: Tanner Hall

 continuing to fight poverty with the power of higher education!

Our measurable impact from the past four months:

• $49,495 cash and grant resources generated
• $7,221 in-kind resources generated 
• 1,751 volunteers mobilized
• 13,070 hours of service performed by volunteers

To date, our VISTAs and the programs and organizations they support have improved the lives of individuals:

• 176 low-income people received housing-related or financial literacy services
• 180 at-risk students completed participation in an education assistance program
• 117 at-risk youth/mentor matches were sustained for the required time period
• 11 new service programs met needs of low-income people or at-risk K-12 students and 72 new volunteer recruitment, management, and training processes supported these service programs.

VISTA Jess-Mara Jordan promotes Open
Doors' Annual Art Auction on the news

VISTA Jess-Mara Jordan transformed the STRIVE mentoring program at Open Doors of Asheville into a UNCA service-learning class for credit, and created a mentor curriculum which includes training on cultural competency, non-parent role models, college exposure, and much much more. Jess also volunteered at "Open Doors' Annual Art Auction" which raised $100,000.

VISTA Willie Jones turned his gleaning program into a gardening club to create a critical base of volunteers year-round. He and the new club members gleaned and secured 712.5 pounds of food this past quarter through the Fill-the-Bag Food Drive, which goes to the Community Table and other Cullowhee food pantries supporting over 25,000 people over the course of a year. His work was featured in this local news article. Apart from Willie's primary gardening and food distribution projects, he also helped raise over $3,000 for "The Unbroken Circle" Fundraiser, to support the victims of the mudslide in Oso, Washington and their families in Western North Carolina. Willie also participated in the "Cullowhee Fire Fundraiser", to benefit the victims of a fire which consumed 3 local businesses and left almost 30 workers displaced. 

VISTA Brittany Johnson secured a building location for Hospitality House of Boone's Thrift store! Once the store is operational, it will create a sustainable source of revenue for the organization. She is now developing a volunteer and recruitment program for volunteers to work at the store, teaming up with ACT to recruit Appalachian State University students. The 5k Memorial Day Fundraiser, notably named the "Color Blast", will support start-up costs for the thrift store.

VISTA Jacob Lerner with the Marion Cheek Jackson Center in Chapel Hill piloted a landlord research team to better determine students' relationships with landlords and what impact these relationships have on the community, and has also developed a student outreach team to help build networks among neighbors, learn more about what neighbors' issues, and connect folks with information about the Jackson Center. Jacob also supports volunteer efforts at the Heavenly Groceries food ministry, which welcomes close to 80 people each day, who then go home and feed their families. Jacob also had $600 worth of food donated to feed 300 people for the Marion Cheek Jackson Center's annual May Day Celebration.

HPU Bonner Leaders tutor students at
the Macedonia Family Resource Center
Photo Credit: HPU Bonner FB page

VISTA Anna Mahathey at High Point University worked with the Bonner Leaders Program to develop Bonners Chats, inviting students and community members alike to discuss and learn about poverty, food insecurity, and other social justice issues specific to High Point. Their Chats included topics entitled "Childhood Literacy, Poverty, & the Impact it has on Children in School," , "Putting a Face on Homelessness," and "Immigrant and Refugee Justice," The chats engaged over 50 people.

VISTA Bevelyn Ukah at Guilford College launched the African Youth Initiative (AYI) Youth Advisory Board with 5 youth and 4 interns. In collaboration with the board, Bevelyn secured a $1,500 grant from the Community Foundation Teen Grantmaking Council  to support AYI Youth Ambassador operational functions. This advisory board creates space for youth ownership, learning, and creativity, and has most recently been focusing on food security. They have partnered with the Food Youth Initiative through the Center for Environmental Farming Systems to discuss forming a community garden and supporting local food education. 

VISTA Erin O'Donnell works with low-income Wilmington residents who not only participate in the Rent-A-Farmer CSA Produce Box program and Feast Down East's Fresh Market, but who also collaborate in planning and implementing new Feast Down East Projects. Erin worked with local farmers to donate $265 worth of fresh organic produce to these programs as well.

VISTA Ariel Mitchell at Lenoir Rhyne hosted several food drives for her community partner, Centro Latino, her largest spanning 15 days to end on National Volunteer Week. They collected over 200 food items to support Centro Latinos' emergency food bank. 

VISTA Takira Dale at Duke University's Community Service Center incorporated a donation drive into her Alternative Spring Break "Dive Into Durham", to donate 150 hygiene kits for Urban Ministries of Durham.

PAGE program youth working on
digital media project

VISTA Elizabeth McIntosh recruited 7 interns to support the PAGE summer program, an educational enrichment program for which she recruited 30 middle school girls. The program is set to launch on June 17th. Elizabeth developed a new partnership with Hot Springs Learning Center, and received sponsorships from both local groups such as the Presbyterian Women's Association, as well as groups at the corporate level including the Community Foundation of Central Florida. Most recently, she received a donation from a local family to start a Farm to Table initiative to address food insecurity in Madison County, and at PAGE's summer camp, where the participants will learn about healthy eating and farming.

VISTA Camille Smith spearheaded the Wake Up and Read Book Drive, which collected over 67,000 children's books to increase literacy in Wake County!

VISTA Sarah Cohn at the Community Empowerment Fund in Chapel Hill trained and supported 25 volunteer advocates this quarter, who in turn worked with 176 people experiencing homelessness to provide housing-related support. Forty-three of those 176 folks also attended financial literacy classes. Not only does Sarah match volunteers with clients, this quarter she also created an impact evaluation framework for CEF. The framework lays a foundation for CEF to improve data collection methods over time to better understand how CEF can meet client needs.

VISTA Shifra Sered recruited teachers and designed the program for "Arts on Third Street," in which 40 low-income youth in west Greenville participated. Shifra's primary achievement has been the creation of  a 30 page volunteer manual and the design of a volunteer orientation to support educational programming at the Third Street Community Center.

Queens University mentor with his
Sedgefield Elementary mentee

VISTA Christina Hudson sustained mentor relationships of Queens University students as pen pals, lunch buddies, and
after school care tutors and classroom assistants to students at Sedgefield Elementary. These efforts were supported by the elementary school's new emailing system informing volunteers of different opportunities to get involved. Christina also teamed up with Promising Pages to donate 398 books to Sedgefield, enough to start a new library.

The North Carolina Campus Compact VISTA impact spreads far and wide, and with it goes the word about AmeriCorps VISTA. One of our VISTAs shared, "I spread the word about AmeriCorps everywhere I go. I personally feel I can't tell people what I do or am trying to do without promoting AmeriCorps."

Read more about our VISTAs' work on Alternative Spring Break trips and MLK Days of service, and Devin Corrigan's large-scale MLK Day event in Greensboro. And if you missed our earlier project updates, learn about the rest of their work.

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!