Peace Corps needs teachers!
I can’t believe it! The end of June and nearly all of the Washington Reading Corps positions are filled!
This summer has proven to be the most successful recruitment season since I started working with the Washington Reading Corps five years ago. I’ve heard from other AmeriCorps directors across the state that they have also had record numbers of applicants. Not only have we experienced quantity, but we’ve also seen an increase in the quality of our applicants: Masters Degrees in education, years of teaching experience, energy, passion for service, tons of community involvement, and much more. When I first began as a recruiter, it was like pulling teeth to get people to apply. Now, we’re wait listing people who could run this program with their eyes closed and one arm tied behind their back!
However, yesterday I was shocked to hear that not all national service programs are experiencing this same bliss. I met with Kristina Lavcevic, a Peace Corps recruiter from the Seattle office. Surprisingly, she informed me that Peace Corps is having the opposite problem: too many positions and not enough applicants. They are having an especially hard time filling teaching positions. WHAT? When I thought of all of the out of work teachers in this country, I was floored!
I remember graduating from college in 2004 with the dream of serving in the Peace Corps. But just as I began my application, I was informed that without job experience, it was impossible to get in, and that even if you were lucky enough to get placed, it would take a year and most likely you would end up in Siberia. I, like many others, have continued to assume that getting in to Peace Corps was about as likely as getting in to Fort Knox. Kristina implored me to get the word out that Peace Corps needs you, and they need you now!
I’m not surprised that AmeriCorps programs are getting tons of applications this year. Now that unemployment is at an all time high, and many skilled folks are getting laid off, suddenly the monthly stipend, benefits, and education award don’t sound so bad. President Obama pushed AmeriCorps into the spotlight when he signed the Serve America Act and asked for a renewed call to service. The Baby Boomer generation heard this call from JFK, and now their children, the Millennials, have their own. I think it was something we as a generation needed after the helpless feeling created by the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Renewing the call to service reinvigorated our communities, and gave us a purpose. Five years ago, it was rare to meet someone who had heard of AmeriCorps. Now, when I say, ”I work for AmeriCorps,” people actually know what I’m talking about!
So why isn’t the renewed call to service invigorating the Peace Corps? Is it because people want to stay closer to home? Is a 10 month or year long commitment in your own country more appealing than 2 years overseas? What do you think?
Please join me in getting the word out about Peace Corps. If someone you know is out of work and they have skills in education, agriculture, business, or natural resources, tell them to consider Peace Corps! Wait out the recession in another country, doing great things for the most underserved communities. It could be the most amazing two years of your life!
Now hiring for SCORE AmeriCorps!
AmeriCorps members sort toiletries for a local shelter.
We have been incredibly lucky this year to have an overwhelming number of applicants for the Northwest Washington Reading Corps. So many, in fact, that we are now having to wait list new applications. But that is not the end of your chances of getting a position with us!
If tutoring kids isn’t your thing, and you’d like to give back to the community by serving in AmeriCorps, then you should consider applying to SCORE AmeriCorps.
SCORE stands for Skagit County Opportunities, Resources, and Energy. The mission of SCORE AmeriCorps is to provide economic opportunity for disadvantaged individuals including financial literacy, housing assistance, job training, and nutritional assistance, and to address unmet energy-efficiency and environmental needs of low-income individuals in Skagit County.
This is a brand new program made possible by the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act of 2009. We have 12 positions available at various non-profit agencies in Skagit County. Here are a few of the places where our AmeriCorps State members will work:
- Habitat for Humanity
- Skagit Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services
- Skagit Housing Authority
- Northwest Agriculture Business Center
- Community Action Housing Program
- Community Action Food Program
A few quick facts about this program:
- 12 AmeriCorps State positions on a team-based project
- All positions start September 1st and end July 15th
- Benefits: professional development, health benefits, travel reimbursement, student loan forbearance, $1050/monthly stipend, childcare, $5350 education award upon successful completion of service
For more information on SCORE AmeriCorps, contact Jennifer Rice at jen@servenorthwestwa.org or (360) 588-5720. To find positions on the AmeriCorps website, type “SCORE” in the advance search toolbar.
Feature: AmeriCorps*NCCC
By Alex Eliason
N-Trip, NCCC, AmeriCorps or Corps Member… Call me what you will. I served my nation for ten months in AmeriCorps NCCC along side with ten strangers from ten places that had never even actually existed in my mind before I met them.
My team, Silver Seven, did things that I never thought I would do with my life. In Lafayette I built homes, not just houses, for Habitat for Humanity. I worked to reconstruct people’s lives after the devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, leading volunteers and destroying toxic black mold that seemed ever present in the 9th Ward’s homes. We did the seemingly impossible; we worked to build wetlands in southern California’s inhospitable badlands. Hours spent planting trees, building canals and working to restore a small fraction of a land abused and misused gave birth to acres of fertile wetlands in an otherwise hostile land. Lastly I fulfilled every little boy’s dream and was a firefighter for three brief months in the rugged forests of northern California where I saw massive infernos and, perhaps, even more impressive, the consuming meticulous work it takes to contain the blazes.
I’m proud of the services I’ve rendered for my country, and I cannot think of anyone who would not benefit from such an experience as I had. I believe it is all people’s responsibility to give our strength to those who need it, and I can think of no better place to give our strength than in service of AmeriCorps NCCC.
Alex Eliason currently serves on the Skagit County Community Action ARRA (American Recovery & Reinvestment Act) Team as a Weatherization Conservation Outreach Assistant.
For more information on AmeriCorps*NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps) go here.
AmeriCorps*VISTA – The Ninjas (and other various pop culture references)
Samwise Gamgee
“I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you.”
-Samwise Gamge, Lord of the Rings
As Quinn mentioned in her post on Monday, this week we are talking about the Streams of National Service and what it means to serve with AmeriCorps. My mission is to tell you all about what it means to be a VISTA and how it all started with a great idea.
Take a trip back in time with me where the Beatles were just hitting it big, lava lamps were launching into living rooms everywhere and Martin Luther King was fighting for equal rights delivering his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. 1963 was a tough time to be president but President Kennedy remained hopeful and envisioned a national service group that could address the needs in both rural and urban communities in the United States. As history tells us, President John F Kennedy was assassinated before he was able to see this vision become a reality. Lyndon Johnson stepped in as the new President and a few years later realized Kennedy’s dream by establishing the VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) program through the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. VISTAs worked in communities for the next couple decades establishing many neighborhood and community projects like credit unions, community groups, and small businesses – some of which still exist today.
Lyndon Johnson - Economic Opportunity Act of 1964
Flash forward ahead to the 1990s where George H. Bush created the Commission on National and Community Service to encourage volunteerism and service-learning in the US. President Clinton expanded upon this and in 1993 signed the National Community Service Trust Act which merged Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve. With this merge, a beautiful love child was born – AmeriCorps*VISTA.
VISTA members are like ninjas – or like Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings, Chewbacca from Star Wars, or even that creepy scientist guy from Contact who gives Jodi Foster all the answers.
SR Hadden from Contact
VISTAs work to “fight illiteracy, improve health services, create businesses, strengthen community groups, and so much more. With passion, commitment, and hard work, they create or expand programs designed to bring individuals and communities out of poverty.” (For this definition and more formal descriptions of what VISTAs do, follow this link to the AmeriCorps website.) In other words, they do a lot for their communities and are mostly behind the scenes making everything happen. They are the unsung heroes of our communities – always baking the cake but never getting to eat it. There really isn’t a good analogy to convey the extremely important work VISTA volunteers contribute to numerous communities across the United States through one full-time year of service. Have you met a VISTA volunteer? Perhaps you have been impacted by one and didn’t know they were an AmeriCorps member. You can only begin to fully understand what they experience by listening to their stories and volunteering/interacting with them in the communities they serve.
The Stories of Service blog offers a forum for AmeriCorps volunteers to share their stories – VISTAs included. For a more comprehensive look at the VISTA program visit http://www.vistacampus.org/ – VISTA Campus is also on twitter if you are inclined to use really awesome social media tools.
Also, gas was 29 cents in 1963. Doesn’t that make you a little sad inside?
Current Member Login
Blogroll
- A Lifetime of Service: AmeriCorps Alums
- Anacortes Early Learning Partners Blog
- SCCAA Blog
- Service is Power Blog
- Serving and Surviving
- The New Service
- Whatcom Volunteer Center Blog