ACE: A Community for Education is a bilingual AmeriCorps program that has been working hard to improve students’ literacy rates for almost twenty years in Austin through The University of Texas.  Our vision is that,

“Every child in Central Texas is a successful reader before third grade, setting them on a path of excellence in school and in life.”

We place extensively trained tutors (AmeriCorps members) in elementary schools around Austin, and now Manor as well!  Before they begin tutoring, we educate our tutors in phonemic and phonological awareness and alphabetic principles.  They also gain knowledge of how to properly assess and progress monitor the success their students have in literacy.  These tutors maintain a daily schedule of at least ten students, ranging from kindergarten to second grade, who are struggling readers.  Tutors work hard to implement individualized lessons for each student in order to effectively teach them reading techniques and skills.

Currently, ACE tutors are placed at ten Austin elementary schools and one in Manor.  Each school averages a four-tutor team supported by a supervisor that makes weekly visits to ensure each tutor has updated lessons and strategies for improving their students reading levels.

Next year, ACE will be expanding their support to twenty-two schools through out Austin and Manor.  We will have over ninety tutors striving to advance students’ reading abilities.

For more information, please visit our website at: http://www.utdanacenter.org/ace/

2 Year AmeriCorps Member - Tricia (4th from left) with fellow volunteers

There are many times when it is really easy to get caught up in everything in your own world. AmeriCorps has helped me realize that the world only survives when one person helps another. We would be lost without each other. I have volunteered with groups of people ranging from 6 months of age to 98 years of age. I have built houses for several families, mentored young children, played bingo with the elderly, beautified local neighborhoods, fed the homeless, and promoted a lot of awareness for causes I believe in.

The experience that has affected me the most was my volunteer trip to DC. While in DC my view on life changed forever. I spent a weekend with two organizations that benefit populations who are homeless. The first night we served meals to individuals and got to interact with them. Interacting with them was very moving. Many of them described how they would rather someone just acknowledge them with a hello than give them money. The second day I spent most of my time at an organization called So Others Might Eat (SOME). This organization does so much for the homeless population. They offer a wide range of services such as medical, professional, and personal needs. When we were going through our initial training a man dressed in a business suit walked in and dropped off 5 suits. This man I learned was not a new person. He frequently drops by and donates clothes. That was a pivotal point for me while being there because I realized what a large change someone can make by just donating a couple items. Those suits would soon be used for someone who probably could not afford to go out and buy one. SOME assists individuals professionally who are homeless by giving them business attire and job skills to obtain a job in the community. A lot of the positions filled at SOME are filled by people who were formally homeless. This gave me so much hope as to what an organization can do. We spent the rest of the day serving meals to those individuals. SOME is seen as such a great thing to DC’s community that even people like President Obama have stopped by and volunteered some of his time.

It is experiences like those that I have had over the past two years that I will remember for the rest of my life. It is going to be hard to leave my AmeriCorps experience but I encourage everyone to join so they experience the life changing events that I have. When I look back I realize what a lasting impression I have left on so many lives.

Tesin Gnalian

On campus you’ll most likely see me doing something Green & White Society or Student Government related; in addition to that I’m a FYRST seminar peer leader, serve on the President’s Commission for Disability Issues, a member of Council for Exceptional Children, Sigma Pi Epsilon Delta, and the Golden Key Honour Society. I love being involved and keeping busy!  I have had experience in planning service projects (gift drives, canned food drives, charity dodgeball tournaments, etc.) all throughout my high school career, this has given me the experience and tools I need to use my skills in service to help AmeriCorps succeed on and off campus. I truly believe that service is about using your skills to help others; I hope and plan to do just that. I’m looking forward to being apart of this amazing program; I can’t wait to get started!

My name is Ronnell Anderson, but no need to be formal, just call me Ronnie. I am a sophomore pursuing a degree in English-Professional Writing with a double minor in Communications and Literature and a concentration in Creative Writing. To answer your question . . . Yes I love to write! I have the ambition of becoming a child advocate lawyer.  I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where I was raised in the Homewood-Brushton area. My family is known for providing service throughout the community as well as anyone in need of assistance. My grandmother, in particular, has always taught me that it is ok to have the drive and desire to change the world but how is a functional world beneficial if you still have a dysfunctional home? She began pushing me to clean up and better our neighborhood; I began volunteering at the local YMCA and getting involved in whatever my grandmother signed me up for. I have assisted the Farmer’s Market, After-School program, Toys for Tots, bake sales, car washes, and local food bank to name a few. Outside of my community I have worked with other local food banks, summer camps, as well as assisting my high school in any way possible.

Nelly will do it!

Service is something that is very important to me because it is something I was taught from day one. As an adolescent I had the feeling of my grandmother punishing me when she would call out “Nelly will do it!” or “Nelly go sit outside and help with the fruit stand.” Not knowing that it was building character and allowing me to assemble a love and overwhelming respect for my community. Participating an act of service, is not only is rewarding to the community or environment, it also to the service providers. I enjoy the feeling of helping parents pick out Christmas gifts for their children that otherwise may not have been able to or assisting one of my elders pick out a ripe piece of fruit. Being a service provider brings the feeling of warmth and pride for my community like any other. I chuckle a bit because before I seen it as a punishment hearing my grandmother yelling “Nelly will do it!” or “Nelly go sit outside and help with the fruit stand.” I now find myself saying “Nelly will do it!” before she enters the room.

SRU Volunteers In Action

Hey Slippery Rock Students, Faculty, Staff & Friends!

Welcome to the the official blog page for Slippery Rock University Volunteer Programs!  As part of the Center for Student Involvement & Leadership, SRU Volunteer Programs are each and every SRU student’s chance to participate in community service, service-learning and advocacy/awareness programs and activities while a student here at SRU.  This blog is a chance for students to learn about our up-and-coming programs as well as a chance to hear stories from students that have participated.  As a follower of this blog, you’ll get to hear about groups of SRU students tutoring at an elementary school or heading across the country for Carebreaks.  You can also read a student’s experience spending a week wearing the same pair of socks to promote homelessness awareness or donating blood for the first time!  There are so many wonderful stories as part of our volunteer programs.  We hope you enjoy!

But first, what are we talking about?  What does it mean to be a SRU Volunteer? Volunteering at SRU consists of participating in one of these types of programming:

Community Service – Activities or actions performed by volunteers for a community partner, organization or institution. Students volunteer by participating in the actual service for the day or over an extended period of time.

• Tutoring and mentoring local children after school
• Crafts and activities with senior citizens
• Environmental clean ups
• Habitat for Humanity
• And many more!

Advocacy & Awareness – Supporting or promoting a cause through an activity, including philanthropy.  Students volunteer by raising or donating their time, money or goods to make others aware of the cause.

• Empty Bowls hunger awareness donation dinner
• Project Christmas Elf for underprivileged children
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service
• And many more!

Service-Learning  – These opportunities are also available for Faculty and Staff.  Service-learning is community service that is intertwined with academic work and which also includes an intentional reflection process. Students volunteer by performing the activity as part of a course.

For faculty and staff, opportunities are available to:

• Provide training and technical assistance in service-learning
• Develop service-learning curricular materials
• Allow current service-learning professors to present programs and outcomes to other faculty through an Internal Advisory Board

We hope that you will join us for one of these experiences and read more about the ones that have been taking place!  Our students at SRU do wonderful things throughout their communities and we hope their stories will inspire you to come and lend a hand!

Fore more information on SRU Volunteer Programs, check out our website, Facebook and Twitter!

  
I’ve had major thoughts lately about joining the AmeriCorps Program recently since I’ve graduated from college now and currently don’t have a full time job (this relates to running, I promise! Just keep reading.) I don’t know too terribly much about the program (i.e. the difference between the NCCC & VISTA, how long the different programs last, the specifics in each of the areas you can choose to work with, etc.). I have a friend who lives in Durham who finished the AmeriCorps in the past year I think, so I’m hoping to catch up with her, grab some coffee, and ask my list of questions to see if this is what I really want to do.

   I’ve also heard alot people say they wish they had done something like this before getting into their current job, which makes me feel like if I decide to do it I should do it NOW. Plus there’s the little fact that the max age for alot of the programs I’ve found is 24 and I turn 24 in August, so I’m literally on a deadline here.

On the main AmeriCorps website I’ve been trying to look at varies programs/locations/projects to do and I find the only one that is coming up that hasn’t already started in 2012 starts in October (either that or I’m not looking in the right spots, who knows…). As I said above I’m not really sure WHAT to apply for, HOW to apply, or WHEN to apply so I very well could be very late for the opportunity.

::Here’s where the running part comes in::

IF I’m not too late to apply for the AmeriCorps and I do get accepted that would mean I would most likely leave in the fall and therefore couldn’t run half marathons until I returned home from the program, probably 10 months. That’s a long time to not be doing any long distance races! I suppose at this moment I just need to focus on weather this program is for me or not and apply. After I apply, I guess I can figure out where to go from there.

2. Running Confessions

Oh boy. Here we go. So the thing is… I was so set on running the Rock ‘n’ Roll Virginia Beach Half Marathon over Labor Day weekend acouple of weeks ago. I persuaded myself that would be the first half I’d sign up for for 2012 and I wanted to put my name down before the end of January in order to avoid higher prices. WELL… the day before the prices were suppose to raise I checked online and apparenetly the price had already shot up 10 or 15 dollars. Unfortunetly I decided not to sign up for that race this time around (which is a HUGE bummer since I love that route).

If I don’t get accepted, or decide not to join, the AmeriCorps in the fall than I’m looking at doing the Amica Half Marathon in Rhode Island on October 14th (suggested by Lisa @ runacrosstheus ). The price is still really low for that race and doesn’t rise again until April or May, so that should give me plenty of time to figure out my potential volunteer plans with AmeriCorps.

I also want to get a race done before summer time, preferably in late April or May (and if time allows me to plan accordily, in a state I haven’t done yet as well). I found afew in New Mexico that are closeISH to a friend that lives out there so we’ll see about those.

3. This Song Just Isn’t The Same Anymore…

Afew days ago while I was stretching before a workout I was listening to slower music (I keep the loud, upbeat stuff for during my workout) and Adele’s Set Fire to the Rain song came on. This is probably one of my favorite songs by her so you would think I would get excited every time it came on the radio or my ipod, eh? Well, I do but I also laugh a little bit inside. The very first time I heard this song was at a dragshow downtown! So now when this song comes on I think of dragqueens singing and dancing to Adele’s song. Too funny, right?

Is it bad that I'm jealous of how toned some drag queens are?

Can anyone give me advice about the AmeriCorps Program?

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The Harlem AIDS Blanket: A Community Arts Collaboration

LISC’s AmeriCorps program seeks to attract talented individuals to serve for one year to help build organizational capacity. LISC is seeking an AmeriCorps member to work with the Aurora St. Anthony Neighborhood Development Corporation. ASANDC, established in 1980, aims to address neighborhood quality of life issues, advocacy, organizing and community economic and housing development in St. Paul’s Ward One neighborhoods of Aurora St. Anthony, Summit-University and Frogtown.

The AmeriCorps member working with the Aurora St. Anthony Neighborhood Development Corporation (ASANDC) will serve as a Program Assistant and will work on a variety of initiatives and projects, including:

• Developing resident leaders through ASANDC’s Power of One Plus One Program (PO1+1), a program that aims to increase the level of engagement of community residents. The program provides training to residents and helps them develop the necessary skills, knowledge, ability and power to decide the direction of their neighborhood.
• Assisting with the project management of the Frogtown Rondo Action Network, a collaborative of 10 non-profit organizations working to ensure that community residents in the Old Rondo and Frogtown neighborhoods achieve long-term stability and well-being. In this role, the AmeriCorps member will support the development and implementation of specific strategies identified by FRAN; participate in community meetings, events and other public forums; and maintain cooperation and participation with collaborating groups.
• Other duties as assigned.

See the full job description for more details. Applications are due August 8, 2010.