Reminders:

Get your monthly reports in by the 5th of each month! For important dates and VISTA documents, go to our Web site, here

VISTA Interviews:

For this month’s newsletter we profiled faith-based VISTA Jackie Loyd from Volunteer Leon, Fla., and EITC Asset Building VISTA Matt Winters from East Lansing, Mich.

Jackie Loyd, faith-based VISTA
Volunteer Leon, Fla.

What is your content area? Provide a brief project description.
I work at Volunteer Leon which covers Leon County, Fla. Project InterFACE, Faith-based And Community Engagement, seeks to connect faith-based and community organizations with sustainable resources that enhance volunteer programs and foster the development of effective partnerships. Provide equal access to disaster preparedness and warning information to our community’s most vulnerable citizens. I want to ensure their self sufficiency for at least 72 hours following a disaster, and match them with volunteers from the faith-based organizations and the community at-large within their neighborhood thus increasing Leon County’s capacity to respond to their needs before, during and after a disaster.

Why did you choose to be a VISTA
My professional experience extends over 20 years in teaching and human resources. My goal was to join an organization that offers opportunity for growth and advancement.

What are you most proud of?
I am interested in sharing experiences, preparing and working with diverse groups in collaborative ways throughout the community. Encouraging companies and organizations to collaborate in the community and raising awareness in workshop sessions. Building communication blocks for the Neighborhood Economic Development Program, over coming my disability and living in poverty. My basic goal is to first help myself before I can help others. To overcome this I had to upgrade my education and skills then implement them by helping others with disabilities.

Provide a brief description of where you want to be in five years.
I want to be retired and leaving a legacy behind of my work.

Provide some background information about yourself. Where are you from? Where have you been? When is your birthday?

Mother of three children and three grandchildren, ordain Elder and founder of Just For Us Youth Community Center Inc., Hope Faith and Charity Outreach, Just for Us Youth Ministry and, Black History collectables and Historian. I was born in Dallas, Texas and I’ve been to California, Florida and Texas. I was born in August.

Matt Winters, EITC Asset Building
East Lansing, Mich.

What is your content area? Provide a brief project description.

My content area is EITC/Asset Building. I am responsible for increasing awareness about the Earned Income Tax Credit throughout the Tri-County area in Mid-Michigan. My other duties include recruiting volunteers for our VITA sites, scheduling the VITA appointments, organizing events that highlight financial literacy, and coordinating new tax sites in the community. I perform these duties in cooperation with the Asset Independence Coalition.

What are your target goals for the end of your term?

All of my target goals aim to leave the Asset Independence Coalition more efficient and sustainable than when I began. I plan to co-author an extensive best practices manual that will contain a year-round timeline, as well as outline the most efficient ways for the coalition to operate during tax season. Also by coordinating the new Charlotte (rural) VITA site, I hope to build the infrastructure that will allow the site to continue after I have completed my year of service. Finally, with scheduling being transferred to 2-1-1, I will have all promotional materials in template form along with an easily accessible list of volunteers for future tax seasons.

Why did you choose to be a VISTA

I chose to be a VISTA to gain experience engaging low-income communities. Of course I’d prefer to make music for a living, but of all traditional professions and fields I’ve found that I’m most interested in those that are service related. I figured that the VISTA program would be a great way to gain the experience necessary to get a permanent job in the nonprofit world.

What are you most proud of?

I am most proud of my mother who, even after overcoming many personal obstacles, always puts the interest of others above her own. Also, her work with teachers in low-income school districts aimed at boosting middle school literacy, taught me the importance of working for more than just a paycheck.

Provide a brief description of where you want to be in five years.

I guess I’m not sure. While I was in school earning an English degree, I never imagined I’d be working with taxes! But honestly, music is my one enduring passion, so in five years I would be satisfied merely touring the country with my band in a beat up van, playing in whatever dump would have us!

Provide some background information about yourself. Where are you from? Where have you been? When is your birthday?

I have lived in Michigan all my life, however, I have done a fair amount of traveling including places like England, Ireland, Netherlands, Italy, Scotland (to visit family), and Mexico. I’ve also played shows around the Northeast in various bands over the past six years. My birthday is April 7.

Asset-Based Community Development
By Gabriela Stiteler

During the last Youth At-Risk and Family Strengthening conference call we focused on how Asset-Based Community Development reinforces the VISTA mission. Asset-Based Community Development re-frames service work. Much like the Points of Light Foundation’s Neighboring Initiative and the VISTA mission, it focuses on engaging community members as participants in service versus recipients of service opposed to serving them. By building relationships with community leaders and providing practical resources we can better identify and develop already present assets to eventually create sustainable growth maintained by members of the community.

The first step of Asset-Based Community Development requires identifying community assets and community leaders. Through Asset-Mapping we can better understand what resources are already available in our community. Asset-Mapping is not unlike brainstorming – breaking assets into three categories: individual, organizational and environmental. The following are examples of Asset-Mapping:

Asset Map

By mapping out the assets already available in our community, we can focus on resources that will develop them and connect with community leaders who can provide additional support as coalition members or volunteers. As we engage already active leaders, we are better able to view and appreciate the resources of our community. For example, when a VISTA engaged alternative high school students in writing a service-learning curriculum that is now being used for a mentor program for a larger body of marginalized young people, the young people who are often receiving service from other, participated in creating the guide, with their unique talents and perspective, that will contribute generate effective mentors in the future.
For additional information and toolkits, please visit these sites:

Neighboring and the VISTA Initiative
By James Murphy

Neighboring, as many of you already know, is an asset- and empowerment-based approach to volunteering that engages underserved and low-income families and residents in finding innovative sustainable solutions that address local challenges. Rather than merely serving low-income communities through the traditional charity-based model, Neighboring is about engaging community members in service to support their neighborhoods.

In November, Strengthening Community AmeriCorps*VISTA members serving at Volunteer Centers were given the opportunity to apply for $500 Neighboring grants to support the VISTA member’s efforts to reach out to low-income communities and neighborhoods to connect to potential volunteers and organizations that were not currently being reached by the host Volunteer Center. Through a competitive application process, 12 applicants were selected to receive grants.

Selected grantees conducted a variety of activities, from strengthening their local EITC Coalition to training residents of public housing communities in disaster preparation and relief. Below are three examples of the many projects supported by the Neighboring grants:

- Page Yarborough, a Youth at Risk VISTA serving at Volunteer Memphis, focused on developing a Youth Advisory Council made up of students from multiple Memphis City Schools. Through her efforts, 11 students from four different inner-city schools now sit on a Council that makes recommendations to their schools. The students are pushing for a Peer-to-Peer mentoring program made up of a diverse group of students; the VISTA reported seeing the potential for the district at large to be impacted.

- Andria Jimerson, an EITC VISTA at the United Way of Greater St. Louis Volunteer Center, reported conducting EITC outreach and education in five neighborhoods that were previously not reached by the local Coalition. In meeting with community members, she discovered that many people residing in these communities were previously unaware of the potential benefits of the EITC.

- Hannah Aalborg, a Homeland Security and Disaster Preparedness VISTA serving at Hands On Sacramento, is conducting Train-the-Trainer sessions with teenagers in low-income communities in disaster and emergency preparedness. While they are currently in the middle of this project, the Teen Trainers will go on to train their peers and make a larger impact at school and in their homes.
For those of you that are starting your terms now or that will be continuing through the duration of 2007, keep your eyes open for future funding opportunities as well as announcements regarding Neighboring-themed conference calls.

For more information about the Neighboring Initiative, please contact James Murphy at jmurphy@pointsoflight.org or visit www.pointsoflight.org/neighboring. There you will find tips for reaching out to Spanish-speaking volunteers, strategies for connecting rural families through volunteering, and many other useful resources.

Top Five Tips for Generating Media for Your Service Projects
By Daniel Tutt

Garnering media attention for your service project has a direct relation to your goal of building greater capacity for your Volunteer Center. Accurate media attention builds the credibility, trust and brand recognition of your Volunteer Center, and in turn builds more momentum for your project and for the work of your Volunteer Center overall. Below are some tips to integrate into your service project planning and organizing:

1. Viral Marketing. This is a marketing technique that builds publicity and awareness for an organization or event through utilizing self-replicating media markets. Some ways you can implement viral marketing is by connecting your service project message to community blogs, newspapers and by making sure each of your partners is featuring your project on their Web site and in their publications. See if partners can play a role by mentioning your event on their snail mail-outs.

2.   Empanel a sub committee. Elect spokespeople to represent the activity for interviews and media coordination on the day of your event. Make sure each spokesperson has talking points which mention and highlight the role your Volunteer Center played in the event.

3.   Use the Points of Light Foundation. Collaborate with the Points of Light Foundation to maximize your media coverage. Contact your content lead VISTA and they will connect you with media resources, including technical assistance conference calls, boiler plate press releases, consultation with our media specialists, and more.

4.   Maximize the role of your partners. Each partner brings a unique market and constituency for you to access, but often the lead organizing group will spearhead media outreach independently. To maximize media coverage you have to make sure each partner is actively reaching out to media and to their own constituencies. Make an agenda item at each organizers meeting for partners to share contacts, media leads and if volunteers are looking for tasks, ask them to make calls directly to the media.

5.   Connect media coverage to greater capacity building for your Volunteer Center through advanced coverage. Advanced coverage is media attention that announces your event before it occurs, giving the community an opportunity to participate. Be sure you are explicit in your press release so media conveys the instructions clearly for how people can get involved. Seek advanced coverage in a specific press release designed around generating pre event attention. Ask media to post this in local newspapers, Web sites, etc.

Volunteer Reception Centers
By Kate Harvey

Volunteer Reception Centers (VRC) play a large role in many Volunteer Center’s disaster plans. These Volunteer Centers play a critical role in managing spontaneous volunteers at the time of a disaster. The VRC is both a mobile physical location and a volunteer management strategy for Volunteer Centers to evaluate screen and place spontaneous volunteers in opportunities and control the volunteer flow into the effected disaster area. At these times, the VRC serves a critical function as a gateway and clearing house for volunteers to address community needs effectively during a disaster. Otherwise well intentioned volunteers could descend into the disaster area and create more problems then they address.

As a VISTA, you can take a leadership role in the planning and operation of these Volunteer Centers. Even if you aren’t working in the disaster field, it is important to be aware of how VRCs work and how you might play a role. In times of disaster anyone and everyone can be asked to help, if you have some knowledge of the VRCs, then the more helpful you can be.
If you are a disaster VISTA, you can step up and ask your Volunteer Center if they have a plan for a VRC and ask how you can be involved in the plan. This is also a great place for VISTAs to step up and be leaders in creating and training people to work in a VRC. If you are not a disaster VISTA, you can still be involved and bring your own personal skills to the VRC!

For more information, please visit www.pointsoflight.org/programs/disaster/