-Maia Rodriguez

“That’s cheese” (Meaning something is unfair)

-Mia Gurgiolo

I looked up from my piping hot coffee to hear, “Hi, Anna! Good morning! How are you?” This wasn’t exactly what I had planned to hear when I stepped out of my house at 7:30 am, but I was appreciative of the familiar face. The vivacious greeting was given by Tara Smith, a KEYS AmeriCorps member at Community Human Services. Tara had a large book bag and was wearing a hat. She smiled in the misty January fog. I smiled back, gave my typical, weak morning greeting, and wished her a great day at her site.

Weeks later, at a Sbarro on Smithfield Street, Tara entered the pizza joint with the same amiable greeting. She gave me a grand hug and sported her black nylon winter jacket, a LaRoche College bag, and tan hiking boots. She wore lightly faded blue jeans and a silver fleur-de-lis key necklace. A McCafe hot chocolate was cradled in her hand. Her glasses grazed her nose. She asked how my day was and how my site has been. I was honest and said that I was tired. She just smiled and released a kind of nervous giggle.
I quickly felt as if I should have kept my mouth shut about being tired. Tara explained that she wakes up early—like way early—to catch her two buses to get to her site, at which she arrives near the 7:30 am mark. Then, she serves until 4 and takes two buses home to Canonsburg, a southern Pittsburgh suburb close to my home town. She had lifted boxes all day to prepare for a move that her site was having. But she smiled pleasantly, and there wasn’t an ounce of complaint in her voice.
When asked about her decision to serve with AmeriCorps, especially KEYS, she cites being an intern at Community Human Services as the start of her service journey. At LaRoche, where she studied English, she also piloted a poverty walk. Over $3,000 was raised for this walk from donations and participants. And that awareness of homelessness peaked her interest in servicing her community as a career goal. At her site, Tara helps with the food pantry on Thursdays and Fridays where community members can receive bread, eggs, milk, and canned produce. She also helps teach an adult computer literacy class and runs the computer labs three days a week in the afternoons. This, she says, “has been a test of patience.” But she also has a knack for the nonprofit world and has been exercising her grant writing skills lately, so an advanced degree in nonprofit management may be in Tara’s future.
But as with most things of the future, her decision is yet uncertain. She was in choir for ten years but humbly explained that: “many others have voices so better than mine.” Tara modestly told how music works in her life, and she hopes to turn playing music into some type of graduate degree, possibly by way of music therapy.
Our conversation filled the space of the Sbarro. Nervous laughter gave way to feeling at ease with the pace of conversation. She affirmed and encouraged a lot of what I said but waited patiently for me to ask further questions. We talked about her love of poetry and her pursued interest in guitar. When she was in high school, one of her nonfiction pieces was chosen for publication in a young adult magazine. This piece was about eating disorders, specifically anorexia, and her writing on the topic was so laudable that she continued to publish with the magazine as a free-lance writer for years after her initial article.
As we left Sbarro, we said that we’d chat again sometime.
One of the most important things to learn about people is who they are when they greet you in the morning. Even before sunrise in chilly January, when there is little to be optimistic about, a virtual stranger can appear with cheeriness. This is one of the most essential qualities of a KEYS member—that in situations when others have often felt bleak, their intrinsic hope manifests.

About a month ago, I was at CHS one morning just working on some paperwork. A phone call came through to the food pantry office. I decided to pick it up since no one had been here yet. It was someone who worked for the University of Pittsburgh. She said they had a donation of food and toiletries for us and wanted to know if someone would be here about a half hour after the call. I said, “yea, I’ll be here.” They didn’t tell me how much they had. Low and behold, a huge truck with four pallets worth of boxes, I’d say about 120 boxes [appeared or arrived]! I definitely didn’t expect that. It was great because we didn’t have to order as much from the food bank and there was a wide variety of stuff so it changed things up a bit for the clients whom we serve with the Oakland Food Pantry!

-Tara Smith

Working for KEYS Service Corps AmeriCorps was one of the greatest things to have happen to me, and I suggest to many of my friends that they look into it.

-Matthew Gargani, Summer 2011

This past summer I served with AmeriCorps KEYS. The Hazelwood YMCA was my host site. Looking back at this past summer, KEYS impacted me immeasurably. I fe[lt] in love with the YMCA, the staff, and all the kids. Although sometimes it was exhausting, I knew everyday I was learning and growing while helping the Pittsburgh community overcome its challenges. I was hired by the Hazelwood YMCA, and now work there twice a week as a dance teacher and tutor in the afterschool program. It feels like a second home to me. KEYS inspired me to get a minor in public service and hope to work in the public sector for the rest of my life. It inspired me to become a campus Y-student leader and hopefully continue with a career with the YMCA. KEYS was a significant part of my life that gave me strength to do what I really love as well as have a great time and make lasting friendships. I recommend KEYS to anyone who is motivated, wants to help see change, and make a difference in the lives of Pittsburgh citizens.

-Nicole Pawloski, Summer 2011

As we sauntered down the street, our conversation meandered with our steps. We spoke of New York and the bear of a city that it is, changing people and turning them callous and cold. We spoke of our friends, and how we aren’t the same as we used to be back in Florida when we all first met. We passed peddlers: people pushing parties and events, beggars pushing charity, advertisements pushing consumption. Everyone pushing something.
He turned to me then, in the middle of Times Square, and asked me a question. Behind him and behind me, above and all around us were billboards flashing, people shuffling, buildings rising. The color and vibrations were brightly alive. But as he asked me The Question, the one I’ve heard countless times, and asked myself even more, the one I still have yet to answer, all of the movements and pulsing stopped. It felt as if the people disappeared, and only the hollow building structures remained.
“What do you want to do with your life?”
Silence, briefly. Graciously, the awkward moment was washed away as the ambient, white New York City noise returned.
****
If you’re like me, you’ve heard one of the following questions much too many times:
-“What’s next for you?”
-“What are you going to do with your life?”
-“Do you have a plan?”
-“Where do you see yourself in five years?”
And if you’re like me, you hate it. You hate it because if you do not have a coherent, intelligent, spell-checked response, society finds it unacceptable. If you aren’t working your way upwards in a Fortune 500 company, if you aren’t driving a BMW, if you haven’t invested in the latest chic stock market trend, then you will probably get furrowed eyebrows and condescending stares.
You hate it because they act as if you haven’t thought about it a million times. As if it hasn’t kept you up at night. As if you didn’t desperately wish that you could find an answer and finally have peace.
But maybe if you’re like me it hasn’t kept you up at night, because you’re truly not concerned with your resume, your career, or your 5, 10, 15 or 90 year plan. Maybe you realize that life is more than all of that, and that it is natural and good not to have an “answer.”
Maybe you’ve seen the millions of people who are embarked on their illustrious careers and yet are undeniably miserable. Maybe you see the countless masses that have settled and given up on their dreams. Maybe you see how listlessly and purposeless they drift through the sea of life as one day bleeds into the next. Maybe you see their hunched shoulders as they shuffle past, their dull, grey eyes that used to be brilliant. Maybe you see their old souls, those whose passion life has ebbed away on the coast of complacency.
So there you are, not having any idea of what you want. But you do know exactly what you don’t want: the pretense of that American Dream, that audacious phantom that seems to elude [us] most; that ghostly hope that enriches few while enslaving others in squalor. You don’t want the 35-year career complete with a competitive 401K plan. You don’t want the white picket-fenced Suburban house, the three blond-haired perfect children, or the typical four-door sedan in the driveway. You don’t want to lose your soul simply to make money. You don’t want to look back on your life and admit that you gave up on your dreams and were only half-alive.
You want more than that.
You want something, anything, deep and meaningful. You want relationships and conversations, not business deals and “networking skills.” You want to find a calling, not a career. You agree with the poet and philosopher Khalil Gibran when he says that “work is love made visible.” You want to find a purpose to lose yourself in, an ideal that is bigger than you are. You want to reach out in love to all whom you meet. You want to look into the eyes of the homeless and come into contact with the poor. Because you know that oftentimes it is the poor whom have the secrets to life and not the rich. You want to fight poverty, injustice, and the systems that entrap individuals. You want to create beauty, justice, and peace.
You want more than that.
So in case you’re like me and you deeply desire something more significant than what corporate/political America is offering, I’m here to tell you that you are not alone.
Because maybe like me, you realize that life is a story, and there is more meaning in the journey than the destination. It’s not, after all, about what you do. It’s about who you are, and who you are becoming along the way.
So if you’re a dreamer or a drifter or a pilgrim or a cynic or a doubter or a vagrant or an outcast or all of the above or simply undefined…walk on. Keep becoming yourself. Don’t ever become someone you’re not, because the world is already full of ancient, apathetic, copycat souls. But keep becoming. What the world needs is souls that are alive, passionate, and true. So keep becoming.
And if you happen to figure out what you want to do along the way, then consider it a gracious gift.

At one of my sites (I originally had two), where I recently left due to budget cuts, the staff was – and is – excellent. I really had no idea what the heck I was doing with tutoring and mentoring (primarily) for kindergarten to first graders at first. I thought I had to be tough with the kids, and raise my voice at them constantly. I was fortunate to have a caring teacher who found the perfect tone in respecting the kids, discipling them, and guiding me during my time there. I had some personal problems growing up around the youth’s age period, and was intimidated by the youth at first because I did not know how to act. Without the guidance of Ms. S., the rest of the staff, and the continuing support of my now primary site– I would indeed have been completely lost.

And at times, I was – and sometimes am – lost.

I remember, the kids didn’t always like me. Of course, they made fun of me. It’s part of the terrority. The kids will try you. Some will never like you. It’s not an AmeriCorps member’s duty to be liked, but to aid the young adults academically and socially, and as individuals help implement a community-based project. Yet, before I left, I made connections. There is one student I’ll mention later, named C, whom I had hoped to connect with better, but couldn’t.

But as for the other connections I made, they were excellent. There would be Z running around the classroom, similar to how I ran around my little backyard in Hollidaysburg, PA (a small town near Altoona); the sisters T. and N. who would always come in later to the afterschool program because their school let out later then the rest of the schools in the program. (They are great artists, but loved to jump off chairs dangerously.) There was also S. who was very friendly to me, and didn’t make it to the program the past few months, so I hope she is doing okay. There’s B. who never liked when I called him “Mister.” I only spent about a month with him. (Some kids came in and out of the program, but Ms. S. knew everyone throughout the school.) I honestly wished I spent more time with him and got to know him as person. And there was S., who didn’t liked to be touched on the shoulder whenever she got distracted, but one time wanted me to be her tutor. (I was honor.) And finally for this list, there was J., who didn’t really like me at first.  I accidentally made her cry because I was trying too hard to help her read, but she eventually smiled and honestly cared about me. I think she and J. were startled the most to hear that I had to leave.

And leaving that site did hurt me, because of course; I wound up caring about them.

And about C., who I mentioned earlier, at first, we got along swell. She’s a great mathematician, but has trouble reading at least out loud. I always had trouble speaking to her, and even Ms. S. sometimes for reasons I don’t even know why to this day. (Some people I feel comfortable talking to, some I don’t, but I try.) One day, I may have pushed her in the wrong direction with her reading by being too harsh in my words, because even Ms. S. said so. Ever since then, the relationship I once had lost its sparkle. We’d still play word games, and talk a little, but it wasn’t the same relationship. I’m not going to beat myself up over it – I even left a voice message to a staff member the night I left — telling her to wish C. goodbye for me and that I did respect her – but I wished I knew the way to help her better. And wherever you are C., I know you will do better. I still believe in you.

That’s not to say I left a tyrant or feeling like I messed up completely. I received some hugs, and especially enjoyed them from K., a kindergartener who always asked me to play Candy Land with him, and sometimes A., another kindergartner. Even though they threw the Candy Land rules out the window and made a mess of the cards, with the exception of perhaps one time, I treated him with kindness and compassion. And that meant a lot to him. And that meant a lot to me.

From what I understand of the school system in general, the school serves the role of a parent in many ways during its open hours. I’m still trying to learn at my primary site how to be the right mixture of respecting 40, or sometimes more, students during the breakfast and lunch periods for grades K-2. It’s a balancing act. I don’t want to degrade anyone like how I felt degraded as a youngster. Yelling at a kid too much it takes away from their being – trust me, I know. But they can’t run amuck either. Right now, it’s a work in progress. My experience at my other site was on my heart the most so it was my focus, but there have been as many pluses and minuses as well at my primary site. Maybe next time blog, I’ll focus on them.

Yet keep serving, and try your best, even though the experience might drive you a little bonkers … but it’s to be expected.

-Ed Tipton

Tomorrow is the beginning of AmeriCorps week, a week which celebrates those individuals who give their time and talents to change the world, one project, one child, one year at a time. These are people, off all ages, from all different kinds of backgrounds who stand up and say I will give all of myself to make a difference. I cannot speak for every program, but I know that KEYS members start their year of service scared and excited and ready to make a difference. Then they find that most days are hard. They find that they hit a wall, that if they are making a difference they can’t see it. We make them fill out Monthly Achievement Logs to keep track of their hours and who they tutor and mentor. Part of this is for our benefit, so we can keep getting the funding we need, but one of the sections they fill out is called Great Stories. They have to look back over their month and celebrate the small victories. The kid that finally masters the numbers 1-10. The kid who smiles at you after fighting you for weeks. The one who decides not to fight, to walk away. The victories are so small they can be overlooked. Our members hope they have made a difference, given their charges better futures, They take it on faith because they will never know.  These kids grow up and after their year or two of service we never see them again.

Why do it at all? Why bother? The amount of faith it takes is enormous. Why don’t we just walk away, get jobs that pay actual salaries. Make it someone other person’s problem.

We can’t. We cannot just let it go. It is our problem. They are our neighbors. “There are no others, there are only facets of us.”

It is not for everyone. There is no shame in living your life, having a job, making your way. Just raise your kids right, teach them the value of eduction. Teach them to care about others and help where they can. Give them hope and faith in world that seems lacking.

But this week, hug an AmeriCorps member. Thank them for trying, against all odds, to make the world a better place.

Yours in service,

Sabrina Hykes, KEYS Alumni, VISTA Volunteer

Feel free to join the convo on the video at: http://communitiesfirstassociation.org/2012/03/08/building-community-unity-ownership-action/

By Anna Barry

            Poetry Club started off as an experiment.  And then it became an outlet.  And now it’s beyond expectations.

In November and December, we had a trial period.  I advertised it for all middle school students with flyers.  I told teachers.  I called parents.  We talked Maya Angelou and Tupac during the first weeks.  I eventually taught them what iambic pentameter was, and they showed me that they think beyond others’ judgments.

(So, I started bringing baked goods to meetings—rather than veggie chips—because all kids need a treat every once in a while.)

By January, we had regular attendees.  The school gave the kids a bulletin board in the hallway to exhibit their poetry.  They were asked to read poems at the Family Reading Night.  They’ve learned Swahili—via KEYS!  And they’ve learned what anthropomorphism is, and how it’s different from personification.  By February, one of the kids was published in an online newsletter, and the others are helping with my community service project.

The following stories are a bit more individual:

            Maya* is notorious for her mouth.  She has a tendency to open it when she has no business saying anything.  And she’s often in conflicts with other girls.  She’s had behavior referrals, detentions, suspensions, conferences with parents. Everything.  But during the Poetry Club session, just before she wrote a note that was published in the newsletter, we had this conversation:

            “My mom’s been telling me a lot that I need to change my ways.  I’m trying, but it’s still really hard,” Maya said.

            I tried to tell her that she’s still learning who she is and how to act, and that it’ll take time.  She told me that her mother said the same thing. 

            “My mom asked me what I like about school.  I said that I like the dress down days and Poetry Club.  She told me that I need to act how I do in Poetry Club in school.  She said that if I like that, I need to take that with me all day.  And I love Poetry Club.  I’m really trying to change my ways.”

***

The girls really wanted to read Romeo and Juliet.  At first, they were very reluctant to take parts and to speak the Elizabethan verse. 

            “This is too much, Ms. Barry,” Rachel* said. They wanted me to read it, and then they would follow along.  But after a few sessions, they eased up. 

            In private during class, Maya and Katie* said, “I like coming to school so that we can have Poetry Club after and read Shakespeare.”

            The kids loved reading the play, and they are more confident about how they’ll read Shakespeare in the future.  They settled conflicts, mostly because all of the girls wanted to be Juliet, but they remembered that it was fair to let all the girls have a turn to be Juliet and to have equal amounts of speaking parts.  They had great questions about the issues of the play: Why was Lord Capulet so evil?  Why didn’t Juliet just marry Paris?  Why did Mercutio have to die?

            The girls’ responses to the different characters and events were posted on the Poetry Club board in the hallway, and they are very proud of their work.  This reading experience showed the girls how to think critically and be challenged intellectually.

***

Our school requires the kids take MAP tests, a pre-PSSA standardized test. 

While all the sixth grade students were taking the test, one of them, who is also in the Poetry Club, raised her hand.  I approached her, and she pointed at the computer screen. 

“Ms. Barry, we learned this!  We talked about it in Poetry Club.  I know it!”  Then a few others started doing the same thing. 

During Poetry Club after the test, they said that the test asked about enjambment and rhyme scheme, and they only knew it from Poetry Club.  All the girls in Poetry Club ended up doing at least five points better on their tests than they had in August, and they got to dress down that Friday. 

*Names were changed to protect privacy of students.

April is National Poetry Month and to celebrate we will be publishing poems written by youth. Stay tuned…

My first few weeks at my site were very ordinary, but anything but ordinary at the same time. The colorful personalities of the youth that I provided direct services to changed the tempo of my time there. The strange brew that’s their social chemistry is the only thing that kept me on my toes for about 8 weeks; while I waited to go on an outing with the gentlemen of my site. I have to be honest and say that I didn’t know what I was getting into when I  signed up to do my term of service. But in retrospect I am glad that I am here; much like military basic training I am learning a lot about myself, and the strides I must take to improve on what it is I already have. These young men challenge me on a daily basis, in fact the very notion that I have to deffer to the staff before taking disciplinary action concerning these young men was a true  triumph of my ego; coming from environments where I make the disciplinary decisions concerning the youth I supervise.  The reason I bring this up is because there are a lot of things that I see that I would handle completely differently than the way I see the staff handle them.

Because of the delicate nature of the youth that I work with I am limited in the range of ways I can discipline them. For me it is hard to understand the plight of these young men because I have never been medicated for the things that ails them; and I have never been failed by the adults in my life the way these young men have been. I pray for these young men when ever it crosses my mind, and/or heart. But on another level I am confronted with a fundamental obstacle of personal responsibility, and how these young men are handling the reality of the gravity of time that will soon bring them face to face with it. I fear some of them will be future tenants of the county jail soon enough, as much I align myself with hope and all the best possibilities for these young men the more I can perceive reality. But all I can do is hope that they make the right choices in life from this point on. No matter what I see in these young men, or the bad choices that they have made, or how many times they have been to Shuman Detention Center the light on the horizon is that they are still young, and have time to change. Or at least enough time to realign themselves, and be productive members of society.

Our Monthly Achievement Logs define mentoring as ‘all things that give you an opportunity to be a positive role model for the youth.’ Things like playing ball, video games or even a game of cards. And it doesn’t get more mundane than this folks, especially on some days at my site. Most the time the kids are more apt to let you know when something is getting boring before you have an opportunity to abandon it yourself. During our orientation the spiritual adviser told us that we will be planting seeds that we would most likely not see come to fruition; after he delivered that line with the utmost humility, I began to become okay with anything that I would see or experience.  After nearly 5 months I can honestly say that I made the right choice. I can only hope that there has been enough time and space supplied that I could have had left a deep positive impression on these young men.

-Bayette Bikim Brown
KEYS Member 2011/2012

• How do volunteers contribute to the running of sheltered and housing with services programmes and the quality of life of those living in them?
• How do those living in communities, exclusively designed for older people to support each other, contribute and connect to the wider community?
• What does choice and control mean for people participating in housing with services programmes?
• How can integrated housing with services programmes foster intergenerational solidarity?

You can see the full chapter here. If you are interested in housing with services, you might consider joining our study tour this September. Also, check out this video on the services that Patching Lodge, in Brighton, U.K. provides to its residents.

I committed to participating in the 1/2 marathon as part of my own health initiative by setting goals to get fit while losing weight. I thought to myself, “What better way to commit than to think big,  strategize, and make it happen with a group of great folks to hold me accountable like Gilda’s Gang?”

My girls, Dannah (15) and Katelyn (14), have always been active teenagers who were involved in multiple sports; however, they had never challenged themselves to a training program ending in 13.1 miles. As the Week 1 training drew near, they asked me if they could participate as well.  I couldn’t say no considering they took the initiative to pay their own participation fees and were willing to get up for training on their Saturdays off.

As I crossed Week 5 off of the training schedule on the refrigerator, I realized that I am so blessed to have “my girls” right by my side each step of this journey. My very own “accountability team” lives with me, works out with me, and still loves me despite being “mom.”

See Kimberly’s First Giving page.

Are you part of a mother-daughter Gilda’s Gang training duo (or more)? Share your story below in the comments section or by clicking the “Share Your Story” tab at the top and completing the submission form.

Photo courtesy loungerie

Thanks again and it has been a pleasure doing business with you!”

Here are just a few stories of LegalShield Members that use their Family Law Firm’s frequently for daily ‘Life Events.’ They do so because it is NEVER a financial decision for them as a Plan Member. PS. We will NEVER run out of these stories because unsolicited testimonials pour in DAILY from satisfied members. Over the last 40 years, members have gotten help they needed from LegalShield over 20 Million times… and growing.

As the self-proclaimed Gilda’s Gang 2012 ‘official photographer’, I have to admit this exciting new project came with a hint of pressure.

In a rare moment in front of the camera, Anne surrounded by the loves her life, her nieces and nephew.

How can I possibly capture the essence of Gilda’s Gang for everyone to see? How can I ensure my images tell the story of survivorship, hope and the bond that comes when two strangers share the same cancer diagnosis?

During week 3 of our Gang training, I had a revelation while trying to catch up with the next bundle of walkers. The images of camaraderie and determination that I am capturing through my lens are a part of my own Gang experience and own story. It is fine for those who view, and perhaps artistically critique my photographs, to not fully understand what caught my eye. For example, the survivor who was wearing the bright-colored ‘bling’ cap. I was imagining she wears this hat during dark days of treatment and uncertainty. Other Kodak moments have included the coaches empowering us on the inclines; the Gang walking in a pack as if an army conquering cancer; caregivers sharing their ‘Member Moments” in memory of their parents; and several mothers training hand-in-hand with their daughters.

As I was finishing the last mile of the course, I took very few photos. I began thinking about one of my favorite photographs of my Mom, taken a couple months before her pancreatic cancer diagnosis in 1987. My Dad captured perfectly her happiness as they were traveling in Europe. Today, I look at the picture closely, hardly believing she has been gone for 23 years. But, how I love that the image reminds me that I carry so many of her physical features. I look at her smile feeling as if I just saw it yesterday. The simple photo provides such comfort and tells a whole story that I can hardly explain.

Gilda’s Gang is about stories whether captured with a camera or not. What stories have you captured?

To learn more about Anne’s story, visit her FirstGiving page.

Follow Anne’s photography journey with the Gang.

“I’ve been a member for over six years. I’ve found your service to be useful and convenient, and wish to share a short story with you.

I felt I was overcharged for a computer repair, and called my attorneys about the situation. They advised me on some action that I could take.

I implemented their advice, and received a refund of nearly $200. One simple phone call got me some good advice. That advice saved me $200 dollars.

Thank you LegalShield for another Win.”
Here is just another story of LegalShield Members that use their Family Law Firm’s frequently for daily ‘Life Events.’ They do so because it is NEVER a financial decision for them as a Plan Member. PS. We will NEVER run out of these stories because unsolicited testimonials pour in DAILY from satisfied members. Over the last 40 years, members have gotten help they needed from LegalShield over 20 Million times… and growing.

L'Tanya Bell wearing that signature smile

L’Tanya is one of those women whose sweet smile and soft voice hides a quiet but steady strength. A hug from L’Tanya always centers me and make me feel at peace.

I was sorry to have missed her member minute a couple of weeks ago but wanted to give her a shout-out on the blog.

Please visit L’Tanya’s FirstGiving page and support her training.