This week we are celebrating AmeriCorps Week and honoring the one million individuals who’ve served as AmeriCorps members since the program’s founding in 1994. We are especially grateful for our 14 current AmeriCorps VISTA members and more than 200 alumni of our program, who have made lasting contributions to the field of campus-community engagement in North Carolina – from supporting a Campus Kitchen project or campus food pantry, to coordinating an MLK Day of Service event, to breaking ground on a community garden, to brokering a new service-learning class. Our VISTAs have also strengthened non-profit organizations like Feast Down East, Community Empowerment Fund, and the Partnership for Appalachian Girls Education (PAGE) that first began as student or faculty projects. Our VISTA project has even helped seed new VISTA projects, at Virginia Tech and now at Wake Forest University.
Along the way, our VISTAs have embodied commitment to the greater good, inspiring thousands of college students with their focus on poverty, social justice, and improving communities. And our alums have gone on to work in higher education, non-profits, or the private sector with a deeper understanding of challenges facing the most vulnerable and a greater sense of their personal efficacy to make change.
Like military service members, all VISTA member take an oath of service to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” VISTA members also commit to the ideals expressed in the AmeriCorps pledge:
I will get things done for America – to make our people safer, smarter, and healthier.
I will bring Americans together to strengthen our communities.
Faced with apathy, I will take action.
Faced with conflict, I will seek common ground.
Faced with adversity, I will persevere.
I will carry this commitment with me this year and beyond.
I am an AmeriCorps member, and I will get things done.
To learn more about the work and life of an AmeriCorps VISTA, check out this selection of blog posts written by past VISTA members:
George Barrett, VISTA, Marian Cheek Jackson Center (2014-15): Little did I know this house would become my home – ” If I have learned anything in my few months, it is that COMMUNITY is a dynamic and complex web that cannot not be packaged in a neat and calculated elevator speech. … Every day is different. Every day is active. Every day is community.”
Natasha Vos, VISTA, Wake Forest University (2014-16): Foodie? – “Fresh and healthy food should not be a luxury afforded to those living in the right part of the city with the most money. If you care where the ingredients in your food come from and how they were prepared, then you should also care about where they end up.”
Devin Corrigan, VISTA, UNC Greensboro (2013-14): Looking Back while Moving Forward: Reflections from an “organized” VISTA — “Bad days will happen. Things go wrong. Buses cancel two days before the big event. You drop the ball on a project. It’s important to build your safety net before you are falling.”
Shifra Sered, VISTA, East Carolina University (2013-14): Let’s Talk Taboo: My experiences with race and poverty as a NC Campus Compact VISTA – “I believe that AmeriCorps does important and necessary work that, on an individual level, can make all the difference in someone’s life. I believe it should continue to provide volunteers to strengthen non-profits and engage with communities. However, I also believe that the work of AmeriCorps is not done in a vacuum and must take into consideration the ways structural inequalities work in our communities, in our organizations and within AmeriCorps itself.”
