AmeriCorps*VISTA - What's that??

As most of you know, I am doing a year of service with AmeriCorps!! All of the different programs that AmeriCorps has can be kind of confusing, so I thought I'd blog about what the heck I actually DO! There are three main programs that you can sign up for: National Civilian Community Corps, AmeriCorpsVISTA, and AmeriCorps State-National. I signed up for VISTA, which stands for Volunteers In Service To America. It was started back in the 1960s, but was put under the AmeriCorps umbrella in the '90s. The basic idea is that VISTA's don't do the 'direct service' (like cleaning parks, building homes, ...getting our hands dirty) we instead work on developing programs and making partnerships in the community for others to volunteer hands-on with.

So my program site is at the Univeristy of WI - Eau Claire and I work for the Center for Service-Learning. Here, all undergraduate students have a 30-hr. service requirement in order to graduate. We call it 'service-learning' because we focus on linking their service time with actually learning and applying the knowledge they gain in the classroom! A lot of our students choose a service project that matches their major and will help boost their resume. For example, I majored in Political Science in Madison, and I took a service-learning course called "Citizenship, Democracy, and Difference" where I was required to do 4 hours of volunteer work at an after school program for a low income housing development every week. Through the class work, I then wrote journal entries and a few essays on my service experience and how it made me a better citizen. It was an awesome class and it helped me choose to work with the service-learning program here in Eau Claire!!

So as an AmeriCorpsVISTA person in the Service-Learning office, I help make contact with various community agencies and work with them to identify a need they have. I then help recruit students for UWEC to volunteer there to fill the community need AND it allows the student to fill their service-learning requirement! It's pretty awesome.

Some of the projects I've been working on:

FoodShare Outreach: The St. Francis Food Pantry here in Eau Claire helps provide hundreds of families with food every week! The community members in need can come to the pantry every week and receive a week's-worth of groceries. Many of the people that come to the pantry for food are also eligible to receive food stamps - known as "FoodShare" here in WI, but may not know they are eligible or don't know how to find out about it! So, the AmeriCorps member the year before me started FoodShare Outreach at the pantry where volunteers from UWEC would go to the pantry and screen people to see if they are eligible for FoodShare! It's a great way to be available to people in need, and it only takes 10-15 minutes!! I just recruited about 8 volunteers for this semester and they've just started doing FoodShare Outreach at the pantry this past week. In the very first night, our student volunteer helped a family of 4 find out that they are eligible for over $400 of federal food assistance money for groceries every month. That's incredible!!

Eau Claire Community Garden Association: I am also on the EC Community Garden Association and we are starting a new garden in downtown Eau Claire! It's a 13 acres space just north of Phoenix Park along Forest St. and will be called Phoenix Gardens. The land has already been tilled and leaves have been brought down to the site for composting. We are all really excited about the new garden and can't wait for the planting season next year!! Check out a great article about the garden initiative in last month's VolumeOne
http://volumeone.org/magazine/articles/887/Hot_Plots.html

Hunger and Homelessness Awareness: November 15-21 is national Hunger and Homelessness Awareness week and a group of dedicated community members has been meeting weekly since August to plan some awesome events!! The small but mighty group consists of myself, Ashley - my fellow AmeriCorps VISTA in the office, the director of The Community Table (EC's soup kitchen), a rep from Lutheran Social Services, a rep from the EC School District, director of the transitional house in EC, and a couple UWEC students. Early in the planning stages, we dreamed big and had events going on every day of the week. We soon realized that our dreams were too big for our own sanity, and we decided to compact all of the events into one day during the week. We are calling it "A Day With Nowher to Stay - Challenge" ( I came up with the name...ohhh yeah :) And it's taking place Thursday, November 19th starting at 3pm and goes until 11pm. The idea is to walk in the shoes of a homeless person, so we are inviting anyone and everyone from around the area to come to downtown Eau Claire and visit the various services that are available for homeless individuals in our community. We are "challenging" people to come, leave their car somewhere, and really try to get around, stay warm, and get a meal with no car and no money! We have a list of agencies that will be having an open house and we have some really great things happening at each agency such as a photo essay of homelessness, a documentary showing, a panel discussion, live music at The Community Table, and a bonfire in Wilson Park as the culminating event. Check out our blog for more info!!
http://echungerandhomelessness.wordpress.com