Field Report: A’s & Aces

Call me Ishmael. That may be the next thing I try to stand out in Tulane’s VISTA crew; as John “Jack” Duffy I’m joining a group that already has two Jon’s, a Jack, and a Duffy. (Really though, don’t call me Ishmael. Call me John or Jack or JohnJack or JD like everybody else here.) Introducing myself this way kills two birds with one stone. We’ve now covered the biggest difficulty I’ve had to face in moving cross-country and starting my Americorps term. I don’t want to make light of the pain and discomfort that have taken place in my month here (I won’t use the h-word or the I-name in this post though), but my month here has started better than I could ever have hoped.

 

That includes my work with A’s & Aces. For those unfamiliar, A’s & Aces is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing life skills, academic assistance, and tennis instruction to the youth of New Orleans. This academic year, four (or five?) A’s & Aces coaches will be working in four schools during the days and holding afterschool or weekend clinics six days a week. They do important work. I’ve gotten some odd looks describing A’s & Aces mission, with tennis instruction such a key pillar to an academic program, but it makes a lot of sense. It’s a sport that you can play for life, it requires the discipline to succeed alone and the cooperation to work with a partner, and learning to play instills an appreciation for practice, practice, and more practice. I’ve always loved sports, and I think there is something beautiful about the educational philosophy A’s & Aces has built from tennis.

 

As a VISTA, dedicated to building capacity, I stay far away from the tennis. I work closely with our Executive Director David Schumacher and our President Anna Monhartova. I can report (with a smile) that no two days in the office have been the same. I’ve tackled a number of supporting tasks associated with the organization of our in-school programming and coaching assignments. I’ve had a hand in A’s & Aces better utilizing some online resources to communicate better internally and externally. I’ve had to do research on funding opportunities and I can’t imagine that will ever cease. I’m dipping my toes into the familiar waters of Facebook from the new perspective of a page admin. I’m lobbying to include on-site photography and some expanded writing duties in the coming weeks.  I’m rolling with the punches and trying to learn everything as fast as I can.

 

I really don’t know how else I can approach an opportunity like this. As has surely been attested to by plenty in this blog before, starting a VISTA assignment can be confusing and hard. I’ve had those moments too, they just haven’t dominated my experience so far. If it sounds like I’m dragging out the honeymoon period with my new home… yeah, I might be. However, I look forward to finding out how the next eleven months of my term will go, and I really hope New Orleans justifies the marriage metaphor I used in that last sentence.

 

-Jack Duffy, Tulane AmeriCorps VISTA, A’s & Aces

Field Report: Youth Rebuilding New Orleans

My First Couple of Weeks as a VISTA

 

This first couple of weeks as a VISTA has been quite a ride! I am joining Youth Rebuilding New Orleans as it is in the middle of planning for its newest program: Future Leaders. Although I’m coming in during the middle of the start-up process and, I have a lot to learn, I really look forward to being part of it. I am confident that this well-planned program has great potential to make a positive impact on the community. More information on the program is provided below (I helped write this for a grant proposal, so I’m pretty proud of how it turned out!):

The Need

The youth of New Orleans do not have adequate access to job opportunities, leadership development, financial literacy training, civic engagement and college preparation due to a lack of funding and resources within the educational system of New Orleans. Many youth are not being properly educated and trained so that they have fair and equitable opportunities upon graduation. This puts them at a disadvantage when seeking secondary education and job-placement opportunities.

 

The Project

YRNO believes that the Future Leaders Initiative will offset the educational disadvantages of these young scholars. Starting on September 1^st, we will incorporate 2 full-time employees into our team whose sole jobs are to provide academic support to the youth of New Orleans. These full-time mentors, known as Youth Engagement Coordinators, will be coming to us through the Lousiana Delta Service Corps (LDSC). This year, they will be working with the freshman classes of two of our partner high schools in New Orleans. Each freshman class consists of about 150 students.

The Youth Engagement Coordinators (YECs) will serve as consistent role models for the students that they interact with, many of whom don’t have a constant mentor to look to for guidance in their lives. Their responsibilities will include tutoring and mentoring students in various settings, including classical classrooms and more independent after-school tutoring. They will also work with our partner schools to develop and teach a curriculum that consists of lessons on personal life skills, job readiness, home-ownership and financial literacy. The last prong of these employees responsibilities will be to mix in-class service-learning exercises with on and off-site service opportunities. These opportunities may range anywhere from building benches on campus to traveling to one of YRNO’s sites to assist in the rebuilding of a home.

The Future Leaders Initiative has great potential for expansion. Once developed, YECs will modify the curriculum so that it could be taught by any teacher, anywhere. YRNO’s goal for this program is to make the largest possible impact on the community. In having a curriculum that can be taught by any teacher, anywhere, the potential of the program is limitless. The curriculum will allow YRNO to easily place more LDSCs in more partner schools. Establishment of a curriculum will allow the program’s benefits to persist into the future.

 

In other news, my roommate Betsy and I have been having a ball cooking “family” dinners together. We often feed the boys (Jack and Richard) who live right down the hall. It’s been working out much better than either of us expected, especially because we can get the boys to wash dishes and take out the trash! It’s a symbiotic relationship.

 

-Lauren Lim, Tulane AmeriCorps VISTA, Youth Rebuilding New Orleans

Field Report: New Orleans Outreach

This past month, I believe the word that I said the most was KaBOOM!

I represented New Orleans Outreach on the planning committee for the McDonogh City Park Academy playground build.  I had never actually attended a KaBOOM! playground build prior to MCPA’s build day.  I had heard a lot about these builds: In only 6 hours, a playground will be built from scratch with the help of 200-300 volunteers.  A simple formula, right?

Well this month taught me that there was so much more that went into this formula to make the children of MCPA’s dream of having a playground come true.

My main contribution to this project was finding volunteers for the build day, November 13^th.  The idea of bringing together 200-300 volunteers from all over the city seemed challenging.  However, when people and groups heard about the project, they eagerly signed on to help (even before I told them about the free food, DJ, and free t-shirt that they would get for helping).  I was even able to enlist the help of my younger brother as a Build Captain (which meant he was in charge of leading a team the day of the build with a piece of the playground construction, had to attend a training, and show up to the build at 6:30 am!) and my dad volunteered to work the nursing table, since he is a certified EMR.  I was so excited to have the support of so many people to make this playground a reality.

At one point, the KaBOOM! committee actually thought we would have too many volunteers so I had to stop recruiting build-day volunteers.  I moved on to helping other committee members’ projects.  The team talked about making the build “green.”  Since one of my majors in college was Environmental Studies, I was happy to help the group find agencies that could be of assistance to “greening” the build.  I also found a class from Tulane that would be willing to assist with childcare and other non-build related activities that would be necessary to have the day of the build for the event to run smoothly.  A cornerstone of the build day was to have a DJ.  Finding an affordable, talented DJ proved to be harder than the committee thought.  I was happy to be able to find this piece of the puzzle!

As the week of the playground build approached, the stress of having a successful build increased.  I do not think I ever realized how much prep work went to making a volunteer event successful, and even if I did, I have a much great appreciation now for all the work that goes into having a successful volunteer event.  In the end, not every thing went smoothly.  The two days prior to the build, the “heavy duty” playground prep work took place, and due to a shortage of volunteers, I quickly became versed in how to use a power saw, which ended up being fun – quite empowering!  And although the playground took seven and a half hours, instead of six to officially “KaBOOM!,” in the end it was KaBOOMed! and the children were so excited to have a place to play!

Through helping plan this large scale service event, I have come up with a few tips that will hopefully help others that work on these types of projects:

Betsy’s guide to KaBOOMing! a large scale project:

1. working together with respect for everyone’s opinions.
2. congratulating those that have done something great.
3. helping those out that need assistance.
4. get the necessary amount of sleep each night.
5. when a task to get the project done stresses you out, leave this stress at work, have a good night’s sleep, and come back ready to tackle the task refreshed the next day
6. do not panic, there is a good chance that not everything will go smoothly.
7. don’t expect everything to always KaBOOM!, sometimes it will KaBLAM!
8. celebrating yours and other’s small accomplishments along the way to your greater goal.
9. always keep the overall goal in mind.

- Elizabeth “Betsy” Lopez, AmeriCorps VISTA Visit New Orleans Outreach, to learn more about the Outreach program and volunteer opportunities in your area.

Field Report: New Orleans Outreach

As this semester comes to a close, I have begun to look back on all that has happened since I began my VISTA year with New Orleans Outreach in July. (Its hard to believe that Im halfway done!) In doing so, I am thinking over the process of volunteer/service-learner intake, placement, and scheduling, and attempting to come up with a way to make the process sustainable following the departure of the AmeriCorps*VISTAs that our organization has had for the past five years.

When Betsy and I first began working with Outreach, our initial goal was to find a person or group of people to fulfill the role of volunteer supervisor at each school site. The initial thought was to find a long-term volunteer that was extremely dedicated and willing to put in a lot of time to fulfill this role. Although Outreach has a slew of dedicated volunteers, finding a person to fulfill this role would be quite a tall order, if you ask me. In rethinking the process, I am hopeful that many of the documents that I have created (and others that plan to create) will eliminate the need for a person to fulfill this role. Although I am aware that everyone at our organization has their hands full most the time, I am optimistic that if everyone took on a couple of easy tasks, that it would be very possible to manage volunteers with the amount of manpower that we already have. I have made request forms, templates for emails, and I have made edits to some existing documents that will hopefully make them easier to use. I am looking forward to going over these with everyone at the organization, getting their feedback, and hopefully implementing them as early as next semester if everyone is on board.

I am doing my best to create some resources and practical processes that I can leave with Outreach after my VISTA year is done, and I am hopeful that this will be a big step in achieving this goal.

 

- Allison Bakamjian AmeriCorps VISTA Member

Visit http://www.nooutreach.org/ to learn more about the Outreach program and volunteer opportunities in your area.