Recruitment Fair Fun!

Part of my job as AmeriCorps*VISTA Leader is recruitment and I must say I think this is the funnest part of the job. I get to go to all the local Career fairs at the local Universities and tell bright young men and women about AmeriCorps and all it has to offer. I am always surprised to find out how many people have never heard of AmeriCorps. Usually they have heard of the Peace Corps but not AmeriCorps which is what makes my job all the fun.

Usually it's just me at a table with literature about all the programs AmeriCorps has to offer but sometimes i recruit a volunteer to go with me. This is where my daughter Angel comes in handy. Since she is unemployed and living at home and 18 I draft her in to do all kinds of fun things like service projects and recruitment fairs.  It's hard for me to lug all my boxes and display board and computer and anything else I decide to take with me to the fairs so I draft my kids or co workers to go with me sometimes. And it is great to have someone at the table at all times for those inconvenient bathroom breaks.

I keep trying to recruit my kids but they wont budge and I think it is because I am in AmeriCorps right now and probably when I am finished Angel will start her service but that's what I'm hoping for anyway. I did draft a young man who lives in my home Josh. He is serving in the HarvestCorps Program right now which is different than VISTA. They get to do more direct service than VISTA does. VISTA is more capacity building than direct service. We recruit the volunteers and manage them and we find funding sources such as grants and in kind donations for the organization.

I have some pics of my display at the Miami Career Fair

 Nope I'm not in them it's hard to take pictures and be in them too.
Anyway if you happen to see a table like this stop by and chat with the VISTA Leader for a bit and pick up some candy and some useful information. We are always happy to tell people about AmeriCorps*VISTA !

TELL CONGRESS WE CAN'T CUT SNAP!

HUNGRY CHILDREN NEED YOUR HELP!

TELL CONGRESS WE CAN’T CUT SNAP!

In a matter of days members of the United States House of Representatives will be headed home for the primary elections, and there is pressure to pass Child Nutrition Reauthorization. There is a significant effort, with backing from the White House and the First Lady’s “Let’s Move” initiative, to bring a child nutrition reauthorization bill to the floor this week. As there is no significant money this week or next coming out of the House Ways & Means Committee, House members are being urged to pass the Senate bill in its entirety, including the $2.2 billion in SNAP offsets. Any bill that takes food off the plates of families, individuals, seniors, and veterans at home in order to place food on the plates of children at school is unacceptable.

Every member of the Ohio delegation needs to hear that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) is our Nation’s first line of defense against hunger and food insecurity. Any cuts to this program will lead to increases in hunger, food insecurity, and loss of economic revenue for the communities in which the SNAP dollars are spent. Children need access to healthy foods both at home and at school.

http://www2.nbc4i.com/news/2010/sep/24/2/congress-vote-new-and-controversial-school-lunch-f-ar-240113/


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130073117


http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/09/26/House-set-to-vote-on-child-nutrition-bill/UPI-24031285518256/

What you can do to help?

: Contact your representative using the contact
information provided below. From now until September 24th, make your CNR calls to
Members of Congress toll free via 1-877-425-4810.

1. Tell them the House needs to pass a strong child nutrition bill that increases access for low-income children to healthful food
2. Let them know that any cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are unacceptable
3. Forward this message to your network and encourage others to take action
4. Call Again! Be sure to call every day!
5. Get updates From FRAC’s website –http://www.frac.org
6. Circulate and sign letter opposing SNAP cuts Etienne Melcher at emelcher@frac.org to sign on.

CALL TODAY:

White House Comments: 202-456-1111 http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
Dennis Kucinich—Yonatan Zamir (202) 225-5871 yonatan.zamir@mail.house.gov
Steven LaTourette—Sarah Cannon (202) 225-5731 sarah.cannon@mail.house.gov
John Boehner—Katherine Haley (202) 225-4000 katherine.haley@mail.house.gov
Jean Schmidt—Matt Perin (202) 225-3164 matt.perin@mail.house.gov
Michael Turner—Joseph Heaton (202)225-6465 joseph.heaton@mail.house.gov
Jim Jordan—Wesley Goodman (202) 225-2676 wesley.goodman@mail.house.gov
Robert Latta—Bethany Peck (202) 225-6405bethany.peck@mail.house.gov
Steve Austria—Courtney Temple (202) 225-4324 courtney.temple@mail.house.gov
Zack Space—Dan Farmer (202) 225-6265 dan.farmer@mail.house.gov
Pat Tiberi—Kelli Briggs (202)225-5355 kelli.briggs@mail.house.gov
Charlie Wilson—Heidi Ross (202) 225-5705 heidi.ross@mail.house.gov
Betty Sutton—Pam Bowman (202) 225-3401 pam.bowman@mail.house.gov
Tim Ryan—Michael Julian (202) 225-5261 michael.julian@mail.house.gov
John Boccieri—Justin Palmer (202) 225-3876 justin.palmer@mail.house.gov
Marcy Kaptur—Matt Kaplan (202) 225-4146 matthew.kaplan@mail.house.gov
Marcia Fudge—LaDavia Drane / Brandon Garrett (202) 225-7032
ladavia.drane@mail.house.gov or Brandon.garrett@mail.house.gov
Mary Jo Kilroy—Reginald Barker (202) 225-2015
reginald.barker@mail.house.gov
Steve Driehaus—Sarah McHugh (202) 225-2216
sarah.mchugh@mail.house.gov

Hungry Kids are relying on you!

Septeber 11th National Day of Rememberance Project

Every year on September 11th we take time to remember those who were lost on September 11th 2001 and AmeriCorps has adopted it as a National Day of service and remembrance. Since September 11 fell on a Saturday AmeriCorps had our service project on September 10th. All over the nation AmeriCorps members worked on various community service programs. Sometimes all the OASHF AmeriCorps members come together for one big service project in central Ohio but not this time. This time we all did service projects in our own area. Since I am the AmeriCorps*VISTA Leader for SW Ohio it was my job to organize a service project for the members in my area. Usually I have a little notice that I have to do these projects but this time I only had 1 week to get one together so I was scrambling to get one that we could all work on.

I manage 13 AmeriCorps*VISTA's so I had to find something that we could all work on together. I remembered while we were in the middle of the Summer Feeding program that one of our agencies was working on a community revitalization project. They had recently acquired an old school or at least one wing of the school the rest of it was torn down. All that was left was a 2 story building and a playground which was perfect for them. The only thing was vandals had broken in and broke windows and spray painted dirty things on the playground equipment. So this made a perfect service project for my VISTA members and me to work on.

I had planned for all of my members to come and work on this one project but as it turned out only 5 showed up others had found other service projects that they wanted to work on in their area which was fine. I'm pretty flexible with things like this but I could of used the extra hands to help.

We arrived at Hamilton Living waters at 9 am and I met with the Executive Director Cathy she handed me a box with a box of rags 2 spray bottles and a roll of garbage bags. I'm thinking ok maybe there isn't that much to it. How wrong I was. We chatted for a bit waiting for some more people to show up to help. While waiting a lady came to the door looking for help with housing. My heart went out to this lady. She had been living at various friends house and in her car with her children. Cathy herself took this woman in even though the office wasn't supposed to open for another couple of hours and took down her name and contact information. There was no sorry you have to come back later or anything like that and I must say I was amazed at the kindness this executive director showed to this poor woman with really nowhere to go.

After the lady left feeling much better than she did when she first arrived a few more VISTA members showed up so we put a sign on the door and walked a block to the building we would be working in. There were large rocks everywhere that people were using to throw at the windows. A door was chained shut and windows were boarded up. The playground was littered with rocks and other trash and the equipment had been spray painted and written on with ugly words. I looked down at the little box of items and knew we were going to need much more than what was there. I had planned a little for this and brought 3 brooms and dustpans from my house along with any work gloves I could find a roll of garbage bags. My daughter Angel came along to help too so there was an extra person.

Cathy told us that people had broken in and they had to install security system and that it was worse inside. So I braced myself for the worst. She let us in and ran to turn off the security system and then we saw what she meant. As soon as we walked in the first door there were chairs stacked in a corner under the stairs as we moved in further there were more chairs in the halls. She then told us we needed to sort the chairs by size and put 50 in each room. She told us to pick up rocks and put them under the stairs because she figured if they didn't have rocks to throw then maybe they wouldn't break anymore windows. Cathy walked us thru the building and informed us as to what to do in each room and put up sticky notes on the doors of how many chairs to put where and the computer room got the chairs with wheels. She let us know that she had meetings to do that day and would try to come back at the end of the day.

I looked around at all the chairs and rocks to pick up a said ok I’m calling in reinforcements and called my son who had a truck. If I was going to pick up all those rocks I might as well get rid of them too. My son Jesse who worked 12 hours third shift grumbled a bit but he showed up with his truck and we loaded it up with rocks. I would of put more in but he said that's it and he had to go especially when he seen me picking up little rocks along with the big ones. I think those rocks are still in the back of his truck ha-ha. So no we didn't pick up every rock that was there but we got most the big ones and some of the small ones.

We worked on the building and playground and playing musical chairs with the million chairs that were there until 4:00 in the afternoon. Some people did a service project for maybe 2 hours but my team worked a full 8 hour work day there and boy were we tired at the end of the day. But we were all happy to be doing some kind of direct service and it really felt like we made a difference that day.

I'm very proud of all of the AmeriCorps members for all of their hard work and I want to say a big THANK YOU to all of them!

Recruitment Fun

Part of my job as AmeriCorps*VISTA Leader is recruiting other VISTA's and that is what I am currently doing. I am recruiting for 3 placements. Washington United Church of Christ in Cincinnati Ohio is one of them. I have recruited for them several times and I think it is an AWESOME organization. Basically they want someone to do grant research and volunteer recruitment and management for them. It will be a great working environment for someone to work in. The people are great there and the site supervisor is the Pastor of the church. She is a hard working diligent lady and I admire her greatly.

Another place I am currently recruiting for is Hamilton Living Water Ministries in Hamilton Ohio. This organization has gone far in helping inter city youth in Hamilton Ohio. Basically they want someone to do volunteer recruitment/management, Social Media research and to create profiles on social media links such as Facebook & Twitter (can you imagine getting paid to research Facebook and Twitter and posting on them?). They also want someone to do grant research and in-kind donation research. This organization has never had a VISTA before but they have gone far and over come some great obstacles in their community. They were recently  a center of focus of the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks and the Corporation of National Community Service and the Mayors office of Hamilton Ohio. They made front page of the Journal News when all the big wigs and even the Mayors office came to tour their facility. They were also a Summer Feeding Site last summer and received 3 summer VISTA's. Now for the first time they are going to get an AmeriCorps*VISTA for a whole year! which is very exciting for this little organization. We are going to have a service project there tomorrow for our 9/11 day of service. Yes I know tomorrow is only 9/10 but 9/11 is Saturday and since our members get enough Saturday work time we try to do things during the normal work week. If members would like to participate in a service project on 9/11 they are more than welcome to. Anyway the AmeriCorps*VISTA members in SW Ohio are going to go to Hamilton Living Water ministry to help clean up an old school that they recently acquired to use for their program. We are going to spend the day cleaning up broken glass painting and cleaning up the playground area. Yay! The kids in that area will have a nice clean place to play which is awesome.

Another place I am recruiting for is Freestore Foodbank Power Pack Program. This program is located on Tennessee Ave in Bond Hill Cincinnati. The Freestore Foodbank is one of the 12 Foodbanks that are members of The Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks which is the largest anti hunger charity in Ohio. The Freestore Foodbank Power Pack program is all about feeding kids. This program targets "at risk" children and provides them with a small bag of food that is slipped into their backpacks on Fridays. We find that kids tend to do better in school when they have a full belly. Basically the VISTA they are looking for will help to Expand and sustain the Power Pack weekend food program for children in urban and rural Freestore Foodbank counties. This person will help inform organizations and schools about the program and give them information about it and answer any questions they have. The will also be recruiting/managing volunteers that will drive and deliver the food bags to the schools and organizations. Another thing this member will do is grant research and writing to find cash donations to support the program. Freestore Foodbank covers Hamilton, Clermont, Brown, Adams, Scioto, Pike, Highland and Clinton counties.

These are all great places to work and they are all helping the community in unique ways. But as excited I am about each placing, I also get the joy of calling every single person who applies and telling them about the position. So needless to say my days are filled with talking and saying basically the same thing over and over. Sometimes I consider recording myself and just playing it back for the next person who is interested in the position. Of course I would never do that. I like giving individual attention to each applicant and to the sites themselves. I figure they deserve it since they are basically going to sign their lives away for a year of service making very little income. After working a 8 or 9 hour day working on recruitment I go home and collapse in the bed or the recliner for at least an hour before I can even think about doing anything else.

If you are reading this blog post and you are interested in the positions mentioned above please feel free to go to http://www.americorps.gov and fill out the application and I will be giving you a call or an email or both on the same day. All of these positions have until October 1 to get someone placed and all the paperwork turned in so there isn't much time to even think about the position just act.

Sounds a bit crazy but if you are like me and have a passion to help people and non-profit organizations you don't need to think.