Friday, April 27, 2012
Photo of the Week: April 26, 2012
Board members Peter Muyanda-Muteba, Samantha Levine, and Michel Idiokitas all came out to enjoy a wonderful evening at Between the Lines.!
Sunday, April 15, 2012
First Experience Corps Member Retreat a Success by Volunteer Support VISTA Sydney Perkins
On Friday, April 13th, we held our first Experience Corps Member Retreat. The event was met with great success. Sixteen out of our seventeen programs were represented. Eighty Experience Corps Members were in attendance, equaling roughly one third of all volunteer members. Three guest presenters: Carol Kamin, Sonja Dahlberg and Marlena Rose, were also in attendance, along with Generations Incorporated’s Deputy Director, Helen Garretson and Executive Director, Mary Gunn. The Volunteer Management team and Program Associates planned and orchestrated the event.
The day kicked off with a light breakfast and mixed seating, providing a chance for volunteers from other schools and after-school programs to get to know one another. The ice was broken with a few “get to know you” activities, intended to help spur conversation and connection with others.
There were two sessions in which ECMs were able to choose from two activities. The first session was a choice of either an introduction to “virtual” bowling with Aliza Krevolin or a talk on motivating students by Carol Kamin. The second session was a choice of either a discussion on the joys and challenges of aging or a basic life saving skills with Sonja Dahlberg. Sandwiched between the two sessions was a delicious lunch. To cap the day off, Marlena Rose, the daughter of Site Team Leader Charlotte Rose, led us all through a few line dances.
Thank you to all who helped make this day possible and to all who attended. We hope you enjoyed it!
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Why I Chose to Serve, and Why I Believe in Service
“I love MNN! We love MNN! You do a world of good for Massachusetts nonprofits, and you did a world of good for our organization this year.”
The quote above came from an email at a busy time at the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network, the organization I serve with as an AmeriCorps*VISTA through Generations Inc. At the time, I was preparing to promote this year’s Nonprofit Excellence Awards, and was reaching out to past winners for quotes about what being recognized for their work meant to them.
As I reached out to past winners, I was heartened to see that my organization’s Excellence Awards had not only provided a welcome boost to the morale of the nonprofits they had honored, but also helped them access critical resources. The honoree quoted above told me that because of their all-volunteer organization’s win, they had received an outpouring of donations and community support that had allowed them to serve even more clients at a time of increased need. Hearing the organization’s story was not simply personally rewarding—it also confirmed my belief in the importance of the capacity-building work I was doing.
I was drawn to serve with AmeriCorps*VISTA because of my past experiences working in my community. After teaching at a summer enrichment program for underprivileged elementary school students and working with Street Sights, Providence’s newspaper of housing and homelessness, I was certain that I wanted to continue working in the public interest, but was unsure of what direction I wanted to proceed in. Serving as the Communications and Events Manager at the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network, the statewide association of the nonprofit sector in the Commonwealth, seemed like a great opportunity to learn more about the organizations that serve and strengthen communities.
And I have certainly learned as an AmeriCorps*VISTA. Since I took the AmeriCorps pledge at Pre-Service Orientation in July, I’ve traveled across the state to plan and execute 8 regional meetings to help nonprofits, marketed and helped execute a statewide conference for nearly 700 attendees, written and designed my organization’s electronic and print communications, and learned things about the nonprofit sector that I didn’t even know that I didn’t know.
It’s been exciting and humbling to build capacity in an organization that has such an important mission and serves so many nonprofits that provide critical services and make Massachusetts a better place to be. In many ways, serving in AmeriCorps has reaffirmed my belief that one person can have a significant impact on their community—at MNN, I serve with another VISTA on a staff of just 5 people.
However, the moments of connection that I’ve seen and found this year—whether in an email of gratitude from a fledgling nonprofit or serving in a community service project alongside my fellow VISTAs, have taught me a deeper truth: we are stronger together. Service and capacity building have the greatest effect when people come together.
