GOODBYE AND THANK YOU TO OUR SUMMER ASSOCIATES AND MEMBERS

Community service and bonding is the source of change from the ground up. A trickle up approach that changes the heart more so than the wallet. In this way AmeriCorps Summer Associates not only fight the material and monetary pressures of living in poverty but also empower others to open their hearts to the possibility of community inclusion.

Throughout the summer, members participated in diverse activities to help Montana community organizations fight local poverty, including increasing tutoring and mentoring resources, managing various summer activities and support services for children and families, supporting feeding programs to help alleviate hunger within the community, mobilizing hundreds of volunteers to assist with events, developing programs to help literacy rates among disadvantaged youth, and planning for future VISTA members’ efforts.

Given the short amount of time summer VISTAs serve, the number of personal and community accomplishments over those ten short weeks is astounding. In order to get an understanding of the diverse impact our Summer Associates had, we would like to highlight a few communities that were positively affected by their service-minded contributions.

Elisha Buccholtz with the Community Food and Agriculture Coalition of Missoula

Elisha’s overall goal was to increase outreach to Double SNAP Dollars (DSD) stakeholders, mainly potential participants/customers and farmers’ market vendors.  Her main duties included identifying organizations who serve a number of SNAP recipients and providing them with information about the DSD program; launching a Facebook campaign; collecting feedback about the program from vendors. She was instrumental in increasing the number of individuals receiving food security services from 185 to 397 over the course of her term.

Steph Reinwald with the Girl Scouts of Montana and Wyoming (GSMW)

Steph’s service with Girls Scouts has proven to be a great success for the program and the girls they serve. Her monthly accomplishments were stocked full of fun bonding adventures and interactive learning experiences with the girls. She planned and carried out two summer programs. The first was with the Polson Boys and Girls Club doing detective science for an afternoon, and the second was a morning of fishing at Silver's Lagoon in Missoula. She also facilitated a week long camp partnering with the M.O.R.E program that consisted of teaching spin and fly fishing and a three day rafting trip. Additionally, she helped lead a four day Girl Scout service trip in Glacier National Park. The girls performed service in the park by picking up trash, collecting data and picking over 300 lbs of invasive weeds. Listed here is a Go-Pro video recorded by Steph and the girls promoting the great activities going on with GSMW. HERE

David Farmer with the Billings YMCA

David’s mission throughout his term of service with the YMCA in Billings was to implement programming designed to help kids in the areas of art, personal awareness, physical activity and nutritional education. He was also instrumental in the literacy component which improved the reading levels of several students. While serving, David was able to balance the stresses of working with individuals from diverse backgrounds and the behavioral challenges associated with disadvantaged youth who have difficult or subversive home lives. David also played a key role in parent communication to ensure parents were aware of future activities, announcements and in general how the day was going for their child. Farmer’s service emphasizes the effective yet often overlooked network potential of college age students and K-12 education.

Our Summer Associates have proven to be adept at building relationships with co-workers and communities. Summer Associates step beyond the boundaries of traditional definitions of service. Through their actions and willingness to relocate to new communities, VISTAs realize the vision of manifesting networks for increased solidarity and mobilizing themselves and community partners to be in service to others. We thank you all deeply for your ambition to serve others and the compassion with which you accomplished this mission. We wish you well in all your future endeavors.