In celebration of AmeriCorps Week, two AmeriCorps members and an AmeriCorps alumna write a collaborative essay on the impact of their service personally and in the communities they serve.
This article was published in Eastern Iowa Life:
http://easterniowalife.com/2011/05/11/americorps-working-together-to-get-things-done/
Written by Central senior Victoria Turley, Melissa Childs, Central alumna and AmeriCorps VISTA at Central College, and Kelly Patton, executive director of Iowa Refugee Support Project
The clock ticked loudly. We were discussing our final paper topics as a class, it was almost time to leave, and I had to get to work. Then, out of the blue, there it was:
“Did your perception change? How do you feel about them now?”
“I think I feel like everybody else, I want them out of my country”.
I perked up, the blood rushed to my face, and my head snapped toward him. I don’t share your sentiment, buddy. I don’t want “them” out of “my” country, I thought. My fellow student was talking about fundamentalist Muslims, which due to his sheer lack of understanding on the subject, to him, included virtually all Muslims. — Victoria Turley, Central College Senior
Each semester approximately 300 students from Central College in Pella, Iowa, participate in semester-long service-learning with a goal of engaging “students, faculty and community members in sustained partnerships that foster collaborative learning and civic participation in a diverse society.”
Students learn to investigate and apply classroom knowledge to community settings, while developing values consistent with responsible citizenship. Among the individuals coordinating these partnerships is an AmeriCorps VISTA member, whose role is to foster and sustain relationships with more than 90 community partners at which students serve. Currently, 85 AmeriCorps VISTA members are serving across the state of Iowa, addressing poverty by becoming full time volunteers for one year at various nonprofit organizations and local government agencies that fight illiteracy, improve health services, create businesses, strengthen community groups, and more. AmeriCorps VISTA members often serve in teams, collaborating and leveraging resources to ensure that local non-profits have what they need to support Iowans.
Such was the case in 2009, when a team of Iowa Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA members collaborated to support the formation of Iowa Refugee Support Project (IRSP). Kelly Patton, originally from the state of Deleware, served as a VISTA member at IRSP from August 2009-August 2010, working to form the basic structure for this newly created organization.
When I moved to Des Moines in August 2009, I didn’t know much about refugees, and I didn’t know anything about the AmeriCorps VISTA program. All I knew was that I wanted to find a job where I could help others in a non-discriminatory way. So when I heard about the opportunity to help Iraqi refugees learn English and find jobs as an AmeriCorps VISTA, I accepted. That year-long position completely changed my life.
IRSP was in its fledgling stages when I started working with it. My task was to work with refugees and other local organizations to get our project off the ground. Our first and longest-running program was our Conversation Partner Program. In September 2009, six Central College service-learning students showed up at First Unitarian Church to receive training from me. None of us knew it at the time, but those six were the first of 40 Central College students to date to volunteer to work one-on-one with refugees in our community.
Part way through my VISTA year, I was sitting in a small apartment with a group of Iraqi refugees. I was asking them about what barriers they faced when it came to finding and keeping jobs. One woman had just finished telling us about how, through a mix-up, she had worked 10 months at Goodwill and then had to give nearly all of her earnings to the Department of Human Services because they didn’t know she had a job and had continued paying her support. She then began to cry. Her husband asked her a question in Arabic, and she replied, “I’m not crying because of the money. I’m crying because I miss my children.” We learned that her two adult children were still in Iraq, and she hadn’t seen them for five years. She asked her son to go back to Syria where it would be safer, but he couldn’t make the trip because it was too expensive. He wanted to visit the foreign ministry to find out if he and his sister could join their parents, but it was too dangerous to get to the ministry because there were so many explosions.
“The money is not such a problem compared to this,” the mother said.
Discussion moved on in Arabic, and soon everyone in the room was in tears because every single person shared a similar story. One woman’s husband had gone to answer the door and was shot right there on their doorstep. She and her infant son had to flee the country. To this day, she can’t even tell this story. She tries to speak and ends up crying instead.
A volunteer who was with me at the time reflected on the experience of being in that room: “I had a light bulb moment last weekend as I sat in a room full of people I barely knew. As they told their stories, cried, got upset, and vented about their hardships, I realized that they were people. Although this is an obvious observation it is something I think a lot of people forget about when volunteering. They are not just Iraqis. They are not just refugees. They are parents, siblings, friends, and neighbors.” — Kelly Patton, AmeriCorps VISTA Alumna
In partnering with agencies like IRSP, Central College students have the opportunity to learn in a new way, while growing in their appreciation for diversity. This is evident in the experience of Victoria Turley, a Central College senior who first participated in service-learning at IRSP through her English course entitled “Teaching English as a Second Language”:
One week while volunteering at IRSP, I found myself in a small, but well-kept apartment on University Avenue in Des Moines, watching an Arabic language soap opera with a Kurdish Iraqi ESL learner. This was becoming more than a class requirement, more than a habit. It was becoming fun, and mutually beneficial. Every time I enter my conversation partner’s house, I leave well fed and laughing. I have learned a lot about her culture, including a smattering of the Arabic alphabet, and she has learned to hone her English skills, advanced as they were when I came to her. If only the boy from my class could or would participate in such an experience with someone from another culture; if he could just experience what I have, he’d see that we’re all just people, and that the distinctions we create between “us” and “them” are so pathetically flimsy. — Victoria Turley, Central College Senior
This year, Victoria, originally from Eldridge, has chosen to continue her service at IRSP through another AmeriCorps program, called the Iowa Campus Compact AmeriCorps Program (ICAP). Through this program, Victoria and other college students commit to spending a minimum of 300 hours in service to community. Victoria joins 127 ICAP members across the state in this, addressing issues such as educational access, health awareness, food security, and homelessness.
During the week of May 14-21, our nation will celebrate AmeriCorps week in honor of these and other AmeriCorps members serving across the United States. For the more than 83,000 active members and 706,000 AmeriCorps alumni, it’s another week to continue living up to the pledge they have taken to serve their communities, getting things done.
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.
