Hey everyone,
Youth in Action is looking for a fundraising and marketing coordinator VISTA!! To apply, please visit this link.
Youth in Action is a partnership between youth, adults, and community where young people are at the forefront of creating positive social change.
Navigating your service year in AmeriCorps is challenging in a number of ways, and one of the greatest ironies of it is that by the time you really begin to get the hang of it, you’re already on your way out! You pick up all these little tricks along the way and even shortcuts and you think, “Agh! I just wish I knew this all along!” Looking back on my past year of service, I’ve thought about all of those things and compiled a list of “10 Bits of Advice I Wish I Knew Starting out as an AmeriCorps*VISTA at Serve Rhode Island” in the hopes that for all of you future Providence AmeriCorps members, you might be able to benefit!
1. Apply for SNAP ASAP
SNAP is a Food and Nutrition Service that can stand to help ease the financial burden of AmeriCorps members. The program basically functions as a monthly allowance for people to spend money on food, similar to what is known as “Food Stamps”. Regardless of your living circumstances while in service, every AmeriCorps member qualifies. Your stipend counts towards income on your taxes, but the SNAP offices typically don’t count it as an actual form of income, which means that all AmeriCorps members are eligible for the maximum amount of benefit. Maybe most of your stipend goes to your rent or maybe you lucked out and it doesn’t. If you feel that you need the some odd $200 dollars a month that you can receive in food, then you ought to take advantage of this as soon as you enter service and use it for your entire year. For me, I didn’t think that I would qualify so I didn’t bother even applying until almost halfway through my term. As it turns out, I definitely did qualify. Things to consider: the excess rolls over and you get special incentives and perks if you shop at local Farmer’s Markets (in that $1.00 at a Farmer’s Market is basically worth $1.40 or some similar rate).
2. Practical construction experience can go a long way
Particularly at Serve Rhode Island, we help manage many different physical service projects. We were down in Misquamicut after Hurricane Sandy struck, helping to clear out homes and yards of debris. I’ve worked on other projects where we’ve had to paint hallways or clean up Roger Williams Park and others where there’s planting and/or weeding involved. I’ve been genuinely surprised how handy my past experiences in construction have been. My father owned a construction company in the early 1990′s, and I’ve been on a Habitat for Humanity mission trip in college, so these experiences have certainly come in very handy. Most AmeriCorps sites participate in projects like these once a year, so whether you’re at Serve Rhode Island or somewhere else, knowing how to use a hammer might just come in handy!
3. Keep track of acquired skills and projects you’ve completed
On my third day of service I helped manage a group of volunteers down in Newport. To me, it was mostly just taking pictures and helping them weed invasive plant species. It took me several months before I realized that it constituted Volunteer Management, which is a skill that can certainly stand to boost a resume. Along the way in your service term, there are a lot of little projects that you’ll work on. It’s important to always be thinking about how to frame the experience and clearly identify the skills you’ve gained. Particularly fields like Development, Management, and Advertising can stand to be very broad terms that encompass a lot of what I’ve wound up doing this year.
4. Actively pursue your interests and desired experiences
Placements like mine as an SRI VISTA allow a lot of room for personal growth. It’s important to be vocal with your site supervisor about the kinds of experiences you want to take away from your service term. Many things need to be done to keep a nonprofit functioning. Grant Writing, Bookkeeping, Managing Volunteers, and many other skills are ripe for the acquiring. If you don’t directly gain these experiences, try speaking up as often as possible about what you’d like to try doing.
5. Identify and frequently visit your zen garden / take time to RELAX
Life can get stressful! Know the best ways for you to unwind. When it’s nice out, I like to go kayaking. One most days, I desperately just need to stay active and go for a run or go to the gym. Know your happy place so that when you need to go there, you can. Don’t absorb yourself in time-wasting hobbies unless it’s something that you truly love!
6. Try your best to eat well, exercise often, and stay healthy
It takes as little as 30 minutes of exercise a day to stay very healthy, and that’s just being mildly active! If you want to stay frugal, just snag some running shoes and run outside. When it gets too cold, I have some free weights that I dabble with indoors and also a pull up bar that’s attached to a doorway in my home. These are some easy, cheap investments that can last a long time. And shop around for gym memberships; some can be very expensive and others can be as little as $10 a month! When it comes to eating, try and buy fresh and local (see #1), especially at Farmer’s Markets where your SNAP can go a long way. And if you do go out to eat, do it in a fiscally responsible way! (see #7). You’d be amazed at how much impact a healthy lifestyle can have on your happiness. Do you best to sleep enough too!
7. Find frugal forms of entertainment
There are SO many great websites out there that are just aching for you to save money by spending more of it at the same time. Ebates.com allows you to get a few % cash back on basically ANY website you buy from. Websites like LivingSocial, Groupon, and Restaurant.com are the ultimate when it comes to getting discounted tickets on activities and restaurants. Between these, and many more deals and discounts out there, the internet can be your best friend. There are also a lot of free/cheap forms of entertainment in the form of WBRU’s Free Summer Concert Series or various art galleries or museums around Providence and the rest of Rhode Island. And don’t forget that most theaters offer discounted movies on Tuesdays!
8. Be outgoing
Many of your fellow AmeriCorps members are living in Providence with perhaps only a few prior contacts. Try and meet as many people as you can! Volunteer for different things and connect with your fellow Corps members and the service community at large. You can make lifelong friends or at least some great references or business connections.
9. Start thinking about what you want to do next year as soon as possible
One year can go by VERY quickly. In some cases you will need to have your next year plans sorted out by around December, particularly if you are interested in something like undergraduate or graduate school. You’ll need letters of recommendations scholarship applications, and you’ll definitely have some tight deadlines to meet. Set aside a half hour or so each week to research or soul search on what the future might hold for you.
10. Have fun!
Don’t forget that your year of service is about personal growth and bettering your community. Enjoy it!
-Corey Plante
On April 30th the College Advising Corps hosted two large scale decision day ceremonies at Hope High School and Dr. Jorge Alvarez high school. The purpose of decision day is to create a school-wide awareness of the hard work that has been completed by the CAC member, the students, teachers and administration. On both occasions, the CAC member had the opportunity to celebrate the successes of the student body in front of community members, parents and the rest of the school.
The decision day ceremony at Alvarez began with comments from principal Jesse Rivers, Mayor Angel Taveras and Brown University President Christina Paxson. Decontee Roberts, a senior at Dr. Jorge Alvarez delivered a speech that morning about the support she received from Julio Reyes, a fellow college guide. She also spoke about her dedication to her studies and the value she placed on education because of the sacrifices her family made by migrating to the U.S. from Liberia. The celebration ended with Reyes congratulating students by having them stand after calling out the colleges where they were accepted. Some of the colleges named were Bryant University, Rhode Island College, University of Rhode Island and Clark University.
Likewise at Hope High School, the decision day event was hosted by Donnie Taveras. At the podium presented three seniors including Oscar Gonzalez who was accepted to Stonehill College, Anta Touray who will be attending Barnard College and Kanyinsola Adedeji who will be attending Providence College in the fall to study biology. Angela Romans, the education advisor to the mayor spoke briefly about her experiences going to college and her decision to change her career from engineering to education. To conclude the event, Principal Tamara Sterling read a poem to the class of 2013 about never giving up. After all of the speeches, students chatted outside of the auditorium after getting light refreshments.
Decision day ceremonies are a common tradition as a part of the college advising corps. It allows the members in the school to celebrate those who will be changing their lives by going to a college or university. It also helps to promote a college going disposition by showing younger students that the upperclassmen have been applying to colleges and getting accepted. It also allows the college guide to celebrate all the hard work that students have achieved in the past year.
National leaders for Out of School Time programs advocate for providers and youth workers to have education in addition to job-related training experiences. In support of that position, the RI STEM Center has developed a NEW professional program, a Certificate in Youth Services. It is being offered at Rhode Island College and starts this summer.
a) The 4-course certificate is designed for persons who work with youth in some capacity – either full or part-time, volunteer or paid.
b) Prerequisites are a high school diploma or GED, and an Introductory Psychology course.
c) One course is offered each semester (summer, fall, spring, and summer) as a hybrid model (50% online, 50% face-to-face) to accommodate those who are working.
d) Students start and finish together, as a cohort.
The first cohort starts on July 1.
Interested? Questions?
Contact the RI STEM Center at 401-456-2799 or email: ristem@ric.edu.
The program’s brochure with more information can be found at http://www.ric.edu/stemcenter.
Application forms can be downloaded at http://www.ric.edu/youthservices.
Candidates who have not completed an Introductory Psychology course can do so at local institutions in the first summer session, (usually May 15 – June 30)
Hey everyone!
Check out and feel free to forward this POSTING to anyone you think might be interested from one of AS220′s sites, Breakthrough Providence.
Breakthrough Providence has a dual mission: to create a pathway to college for low-income, academically motivated middle school students in Providence Public Schools, and to encourage talented high school and college students to pursue careers in education.
A photo of the first time travel test with Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
August 15, 2011.
The date that I embarked on a life dedicated to service. In my mind I knew that I had prior experience in helping others, ranging from tutoring, advocacy, and fundraising to name a few. I only recently considered dedicating a full year to full-time service, and the idea itself was equal parts hope and stress. I would get the opportunity to put into practice what I had learned at Northern Illinois University but what if what I learned was not good enough…and my limited experience too paltry to make an adequate difference? ‘Service’ is not an action or concept to be taken lightly; there is an immense responsibility to oneself and the served communities in it, so the pressure is one worry. Additionally, this decision, this choice would uproot me from my hometown of Chicago, IL (which I had lived my entire life) to Boston, MA; so even the comforts of home that ground me will be absent.
Even with this all rattling around my brain as I made my transition, there are so still many pieces of knowledge that I would whisper in my own ear if I were given the Marty McFly-esque gift of Time-Travel. Something like, “Trust in yourself so that you may trust others better”, or “Sometimes to be selfless, you need to be a bit selfish” or just, “Stop stressin’ and have fun”.
Not that my first year of service was bad, but as all things (I think) it was “perfect-able”. In order to work with young students it takes a lot of patience, but I also feel it can take a lot more patience to work with adults that work with youth. The joy of youth is awesome and awe inspiring, and the dedication of all adults interested in helping them is inspiring, but it can be hard. Yet, if learning this idea earlier would have allowed me to put my idealism to more effective use; thereby, putting me in better postion to help myself and others.
Then, I would turn around and make a sequel so that I could improve on my proud choice to become an AmeriCorp VISTA in 2012. Because even with the lessons of my first year, they may not have been fully digested, and there’s always something to learn. As such, I would definitely inform myself of the need to know my own limitations. Knowing when to say ‘no’ or when restart a task is a fine art, because not being careful with ones energy can lead to works that fall to live up to potential. I think there is a strange balance in service/volunteering where gumption or motivation can adversely effect results. One can start out with a great idea and put an amount of enormous energy towards it, but unless oneself and the idea are let to rest it might not reflect the energy put in but the exhaustion that came out.
So, as I am here closing out my second year of service with Serve Rhode Island I hope to repeat my successes and reflect on my mistakes, continue to follow my passions and see the beauty in both the good and bad. Now, I don’t know if my experience can or will help another AC member, but I will say have fun in your experience and invest in a DeLorean.
Hello AmeriCorps members and interested citizens!
Our fabulous P.E. team here at Learning Community Charter School works endlessly to ensure that our students are active and healthy in all that they do. Their newest project to encourage healthy habits and exercise is the Let’s Move! Fitness Festival. This is intended to be a HUGE event, and we’re looking for energetic volunteers to help. Here are the details:
When: Saturday, May 18th from 8-12
Where: Higginson Avenue Complex (Perez Field) on Higginson Ave., Central Falls, RI, 02863
Ways you could help:
SET UP – (7:30 – 8:30 am) the morning of the festival, we need a few volunteers to set up the fitness stations, put out tables and chairs and cut up fruit.
DURING THE FESTIVAL (8:30 – 12:00) Students will have to participate in different stations and an adult volunteer will stamp their “fitness passport”; when they fill up their passport they earn a prize. Volunteers will be needed to help run the race (pass out medals and trophies, keep parents of track during the race, cheer), register families, serve food, serve water, take pictures, help students find their way, run a raffle, run a fitness stations, including soccer games and even a bouncy house!
CLEAN UP (11 – 12) Pick up materials, clean up, pick up tables and chairs and return to the school.
Hopefully you are as excited about this event as we are! If you are interested in volunteering, please contact Ella Rodriguez at ella@thelearningcommunity.com
Thanks!
