National Service in the News for Thursday, March 9, 2017.
“101
Ways to Age Gracefully” – Women’s History Month – National AmeriCorps Week
Prairie Public Broadcasting (ND),
March 8, 2017
It’s National AmeriCorps Week.
Here to tell us about AmeriCorps in North Dakota is program director Ryan Volk. “North Dakota has approximately 140 members statewide, the
mission of AmeriCorps in the state of North Dakota is all around community
service, internship, work experience, getting young people involve in the
community. It helps retract and retain North Dakota residents to stay in the North
Dakota.” “The Cooperstown Community Activates Program, Program Director told me
that “I don’t relate to the kids anymore”, it’s nice to have someone who is
younger who can relate to the clientele of their program”.
AmeriCorps
Week celebrated March 4-11
The Daily Iowegian (IA), March 8,
2017
The Iowa AmeriCorps 4-H Outreach Program works with youth around the state of
Iowa. In Centerville, there are six AmeriCorps members working with youth in
grades K-6 in the Centerville School District. The members are Penny Exline
(Lincoln Elementary), Cori Salisbury (Central Elementary), Kerry Moore (Central
Elementary), Skyler Lawson (Garfield Elementary), Angela Opperman (Lakeview
Elementary), and Katelan Hamilton (Lakeview). The six members in Centerville
work with more than 250 youth.
State
Celebrates AmeriCorps Week
The Alton Daily News (IL), March
9, 2017
Illinois is
celebrating AmeriCorps Week and the 2,600 Illinoisans who participate in the
program. AmeriCorps provides opportunities for adults of all ages to help their
communities. Serve Illinois Executive Director Scott McFarland says they tackle
a variety of projects.
“The
work of the soul”: Food drive kicks off statewide AmeriCorps symposium in
Helena
The
Independent Record
(MT), March 8, 2017
Lisa Bullock explained the importance of what AmeriCorps members from across
the state were about to do. Montana’s First Lady told the roughly 260 people
who filled a room at Carroll College on Wednesday that the food drive would
help feed hungry children. Roughly 250
AmeriCorps participants and perhaps a dozen staff are in Helena this week for a
three-day Serve Montana symposium intended to further opportunities for
service and collaboration.
Artist
Profile: Alexa Borromeo lets diversity shine through
The Michigan Daily, March 8, 2017
Alexa Borromeo divides her days between Detroit and
Ypsilanti. In Detroit she works with Focus: HOPE, a nonprofit organization in
collaboration with AmeriCorps and Public Allies that seeks to put in place
local leadership to empower communities in a sustainable way. She works with
Youth Development in the Community Arts Department where she coordinates
photography programming for 5th to 8th grade students in Detroit where they
take field trips and learn to use DSLR cameras, hoping to cultivate passion and
skills that may help students find educational and employment opportunities as
they mature. Her outreach also involves starting art clubs at schools where
funding or access to the arts may be limited.
United
Way of Hancock County Looking for People to Join VISTA
WFIN-AM (OH), March 8, 2017
The United Way of Hancock County is accepting applications for AmeriCorps
Volunteers in Service to America. Program Coordinator Heather Heilman said that
the program is a wonderful experience. Heilman said that if accepted you’ll get to
engage the community.
Oakland college students turn their lives
around, now here comes Trump’s first budget
The East Bay Times (CA), March 8,
2017
In Washington, D.C., a bean counter raises a figurative ax and chops a
Clinton-era public service program from a draft of President Donald
Trump’s first federal budget. The pain, for Oakland’s Samantha Vitti, is not
figurative. Vitti, 25, a self-described “work in progress,” is a single mom who
spent much of her childhood in the foster system. She dropped out of high
school. Stories like hers typically are not harbingers of a life filled with
joy and light. But Vitti has taken steps to rewrite her personal narrative.
Service
Project Honors Local Law Enforcement
Decorahnews.com (IA), March 8, 2017
A group of 20 people--Girl Scouts from Troop
6336, mentors & mentees, AmeriCorps members and parents--joined forces
Tuesday night to complete a service project to honor local law enforcement.
Group members glued "poems" onto brown lunch bags, decorated the
bags, and then filled them with corresponding candies from the poem. Next, the
group walked the bags over to the Decorah Police Department and presented them
to the Decorah Police Officers, Winneshiek County Sheriff Officers and
Winneshiek County 911 dispatchers. The purpose of the service project was to
thank local law enforcement for their service in our community.
Council
backs national grant for Kids Café
The
Clay Center Dispatch
(KS), March 8, 2017
Last night the Clay Center City Council supported an
effort to expand the summer feeding program, Kids Cafe, to include recreational
and educational opportunities. The council agreed to authorize Mayor Jimmy
Thatcher to sign a letter of support to go with a grant application submitted
by AmeriCorps volunteer Lucas Lemmer on behalf of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.
Slice:
Northern Illinois Food Bank relies on special volunteers to achieve its goals
in Rockford region
rrstar.com
(IL), March 8, 2017
At the Northern
Illinois Food Bank, 11 specialized volunteers spread out across the region
every day to make a difference in the communities the Food Bank supports. These
volunteers are AmeriCorps
VISTA members. "VISTA is a yearlong volunteer program that focuses on
combating poverty with the goal of making poverty history," said Shelbi
Ball, the VISTA leader for the Northern Illinois Food Bank. "We are all
college graduates who apply to nonprofits that have a VISTA program."
State
park welcomes yurts to campground
The Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA),
March 8, 2017
Adventurers who want to experience staying in the Great Outdoors but aren’t
quite ready for the full camping experience will soon have a new option at
Powhatan State Park. The park is winding up construction on three new yurts
that will allow guests to stay in its River Bend Campground with a few more
amenities than are offered by a standard tent but not quite the luxury of a
recreational vehicle. Constructed wood kits that
are brought out to the parks and assembled by park staff and AmeriCorps
members, Seaver said. The canvas that seals in the structures are made by
Blue Ridge Yurts, which make the roof and siding as well as a clear dome that
rests at the apex and can be opened when the weather is nice.
Sienkiewicz
becomes CNE executive director
The Colorado Springs Business Journal,
March 8, 2017
The Colorado Springs-based Center for Nonprofit Excellence has appointed Abby Sienkiewicz as
its new executive director. Sienkiewicz has been involved with CNE for more
than 10 years and most recently served as interim executive director following
last year’s departure of longtime leader Dave Somers, who had served as executive director since
2009. Originally from the Detroit area,
Sienkiewicz moved to Colorado in 2006 and worked in the nonprofit sector for
AmeriCorps, which is how she became involved with CNE.
Make
AmeriCorps Great Again
The Washington
Monthly,
March 8, 2017
You can now group government programs into three categories: the ones that
Trump hates (sanctuary cities, Obamacare), the ones that he loves (the
military, border enforcement officers) – and then the other 99 percent:
programs about which Trump has no opinion and/or knowledge. His default for the
third group will be to defer to his cabinet and Republican leadership. That
would seem to mean death to AmeriCorps, the national service program that has
given 1 million young Americans community service jobs through which they could
earn college aid. The program, according to press accounts, has
been targeted for elimination in early White House budget plans.
Living
the history: Historic interpreters show Delaware life in the 18th
Century
The Sussex Countian (DE), March
8, 2017
You don't need H.G. Wells' time machine to find out about life in 18th century
Delaware: all it takes is a trip in the family car. Just a few short miles
south of Dover stands Poplar Hall, a three-story brick home dating back to
1740. Standing on what once was a 5,000-acre plantation, the house was built by
wealthy Quaker and tobacco farmer Samuel Dickinson, who moved there from
Maryland. It later became home to his eldest son John, a man whose intellect
helped shaped the American Revolution and who influence at one time was second
only to that of Benjamin Franklin. Melissa Fitzgerald started working as a
historic interpreter at Fort Delaware through the AmeriCorps program, and met
her husband, Sean Carrow, while at the Pea Patch Island Fort.
Service
with a smile – AmeriCorps staff, members extol group’s benefits
The Sauk Valley (IL), March 8,
2017
You don’t need to leave the ABC AmeriCorps office at Sauk Valley Community
College to find evidence of the program’s power. Outside its office walls, its
members – most but not all of them students – serve the community in a variety
of ways. They work in local schools, helping teachers and mentoring kids in the
classroom and after-school programs; they help with activities at hospitals,
daycares and kids clubs such as 4-H, Teen Turf in Amboy and the YWCA's Tech Girls
in Sterling; they work on résumés and help hone interview skills for women in
the Y's Career Connections program. It's a great way to gain experience and job
training, while also providing all kinds of community service-related work for
cash-strapped schools and nonprofits.
Remembering
My Grandmother on International Women’s Day
The Huffington Post, March 8, 2017
This International Women’s Day, and every day since her passing, I remember my
grandmother. When
my grandfather died and great-grandmother died within a week of each other, my
grandmother went back to school. She was sixty years old. Having grown up on a
farm in North Dakota with Polish as her first language she had the equivalent
of a seventh grade education. From 1991 to 2012
she volunteered at a foster grandparent program. Through the years hundreds of
children came to know her as ‘Grandma.’ When I was little I was jealous, not
wanting to share her with anyone else, but as I grew older I realized that
happiness is meant to be shared.
Government
Performance Lab Awards Technical Assistance to Three States
The
Harvard Gazette (MA),
March 8, 2017
The Government
Performance Lab (GPL) at Harvard
Kennedy School announced Feb. 23 that it has selected California,
Connecticut, and Illinois to receive technical assistance developing
performance improvement projects that apply Pay for Success (PFS) principles to
core agency services. The GPL, a grantee of the Corporation for National and
Community Service’s (CNCS) Social Innovation Fund (SIF), received applications
from more than a dozen state and local governments, demonstrating the growing
interest in new approaches to the way governments address stubborn social
challenges.
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