The member serving at Asnuntuck Community College helps to facilitate and build capacity for programs at the college to empower students from low-income communities. The goal is to participate in a community of practice with other host sites while fostering community-based partnerships to strengthen and improve effective community engagement around food justice and food insecurity. The Asnuntuck Community College VISTA project also focuses on capacity development for a Holistic Student Support Services program that will extend the safety net for students and help them achieve their educational goals.

The VISTA project at Capital Community College will support the development and management of sustainable new community partnerships with institution departments that support the alleviation of food insecurity on campus. The AmeriCorps member will support the training and building of curricula for student workers and volunteers to build capacity of the program to eliminate food insecurity on campus through workshops, presentations, and by developing outreach methods to reach the Hartford community. An additional goal is to increase pantry usage by averaging 140 visits per month, equating to 16,648 meals for the year for the student population.

At Housatonic Community College (HCC) in Bridgeport, CT, working with the Student Success Division, the VISTA member is establishing a peer mentorship program for first-year students to be paired with second-year students, and for our second-year students to be paired with HCC alumni. One of HCC’s greatest concerns is its low graduation rate of 9%. Despite HCC’s establishment as a community college in the city of Bridgeport, which is known for its closeness and support among its residents, a survey conducted by current VISTA members to over 600 students, revealed a sense of community and support was lacking among our HCC students. The VISTA will revisit the survey data and determine if further information needs to be gathered from students. This research will inform the foundation of the peer mentorship program the VISTA is working to establish. Through the establishment of the mentoring program, students will feel a sense of community that will allow them to engage in their community, and achieve degree completion, to in turn break the cycle of poverty.

After a year of collaborating with campus and community partners to build the foundation and curriculum of a peer mentorship program, the 2020-2021 VISTA project will pilot and conduct on-going evaluation the peer mentorship program. The overall goal of this project is to eradicate poverty through increasing the retention of Housatonic Community College students’ low-income students and guiding them towards graduation.

Naugatuck Valley Community College (NVCC) serves students from the greater Waterbury area which has the highest unemployment rate in New England and a poverty rate of 25.1%. The non-academic obstacles students face are compounded because while in school, they are unable to work multiple jobs or long hours to help support a household. Barriers like food insecurity contribute to the non-completion of our low-income students. To address equity in achievement, NVCC is committed to alleviating barriers unique to our student body. In 2017, a student food pantry was established to ensure students in need of food assistance have access to nutritious foods. The VISTA project will help support low income students and expand services currently provided by the NVCC Student Food Pantry. The AmeriCorps member will build capacity for the pantry that will allow students to not only have access to food but identify services and partners that support the continued supply of resources for students in need. As a result, the college anticipates increased retention rates as students will be able to remain in school, earn their degrees and become fully employed members of the community.

The VISTA project at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) focuses on developing a new Family Engagement Program for SCSU University Access Programs Department (UAP). The objective of the Family Engagement Program is to provide services and resources to families of UAP students that will empower and engage families to be a part of the solution to helping students succeed.  UAP students are primarily first-generation, low income, and students of color and represent 10% of Southern’ s population. The AmeriCorps Member will research best practices of family engagement at other institutions of higher education and develop and distribute surveys and conduct focus groups with current students and their families to understand the needs and expectations for creating meaningful family engagement at Southern, which will have a positive impact on persistence and graduation rates. The year-end goal for the VISTA project is to work with campus partners to create an on-line Family Engagement web portal and to develop a year-long Family Engagement Workshop Series that encourages families to come to campus up to 10 times a year for both first-year and second-year students. 

The VISTA project at Tunxis Community College will focus on post-secondary education support. The VISTA project seeks to develop a summer bridge program for local low-income high school students by conducting outreach to these students through the colleges EARS and CARES programs. The VISTA will research and identify best practices for connecting students to resources and wider social community at Tunxis, which will benefit at least 130 low-income students. The VISTA will perform activities such as mentoring, outreach, and research for the establishment of a summer bridge program.

In 2020-2021, the AmeriCorps member placed at Tunxis Community College will continue building capacity to improve the retention and graduation rates of low-income academically at-risk students through the development of data-driven best practices, in early identification/academic intervention, student engagement and lay a foundation for a possible first summer bridge program (to be determined based on COVID status) that will serve incoming low-income students from New Britain and Bristol, CT.

The Chicago School of Professional Psychology (TCSPP) has worked closely with our partner site, The Community Builders Inc. – Oakley Square Apartments, located on Chicago’s Westside.  This VISTA project will play a key role in helping to expand the services that TCSPP students have in providing mental health services to the Oakley Square Community.  Over the past eight years, TCSPP’s Community Partnerships Department ran a one day after school program for youth in Kindergarten through 8^th grade.  This program has allowed TCSPP to establish a strong foundation in the community.  TCSPP is launching a counseling Center, Interwoven, this year to support the communities’ mental health needs.  A goal is to provide on-site counseling to residents at Oakley Square.  The AmeriCorps Member will be responsible for helping to recruit TCSPP students to serve as tutors in the after school program, as well as continue efforts to gain connections to their parents and help identify counseling needs and help with the referral process for counseling services with the Interwoven program.  The AmeriCorps Member will work with the Executive Directors of the Community Partnerships Department and Interwoven at TCSPP, the Community Life Senior Manager at Oakley Square, the nurse from the Sue Gin Health Center at Oakley Square, and both TCSPP and DePaul students to provided needed services with Oakley Square residents.  In addition, the AmeriCorps Member will assist with creating an advisory board of Oakley Square residents to help provide guidance and direction to the program and be responsible for creating a binder to outline steps in the development of the program as well as assist with assessing services and collecting data on the program.

College of DuPage – Food Security

In cooperation with the Food Security Initiative Team, the AmeriCorps will continue to expand the food pantry and community garden operation at College of DuPage in order to identify all students who may benefit from the service; provide educational opportunities in the areas of sustainability and healthy eating and conduct regular surveys and outreach to continuously improve our service to our clients and staff.

College of DuPage – Career Services

The AmeriCorps Member will be responsible for providing support to the Career Services Center team with growing and sustaining a Job Shadow and creating Career Closet program. A Job Shadow Program allows students to participate in a one-day opportunity to gain an understanding of a particular business, industry, or specific job.  Job Shadowing allows the student to observe the day-to-day operations at the business, ask questions, and develop relationships in their area of career interest. The Career Closet will provide students in the job shadow program with a professional outfit for their interview and/or future employment needs.

The AmeriCorps member in the Office of Community Engaged Learning will collaborate with campus and community partners to foster a strong relationship between Lewis University and partners in the Fairmont community through the Fairmont-Lewis Coalition. The member will improve and coordinate communication between stakeholders, work to educate on-campus partners about the community, and facilitate the engagement of new partners and resources – especially in the areas of education, sustainability, and access to healthy food.

The AmeriCorps Member will work to interrupt the cycle of poverty by sustaining and building upon the relationship between Loyola Schools 2020 and New Field Primary School. Through this relationship, School 2020 Program at Loyola University will be able to increase opportunities for K-12 students in the Rogers Park community to graduate high school prepared for post-secondary options. The AmeriCorps Member will work to engage parents of New Field students, identify and develop additional resources that can be committed to New Field, work alongside New Field staff and volunteers to formalize volunteer roles in the school, identify areas of need, and build collaborative relationships with other neighborhood schools and organizations.

North Park University – Catalyst 606

The VISTA project at North Park University will support Catalyst 606, a co-curricular experiential learning/civic engagement initiative that supports learning and engagement in the City of Chicago. These experiences are tailored for students to engage in dialogue with community leaders and/or stakeholders. The Catalyst Semester is a semester-long cohort program that incorporates eight Wednesdays and a practicum in the city. Students are placed with local community-based organizations working on issues that pertain to the intersections of race, gender, and poverty. The Wednesday sessions serve to deepen conversations around the issues they are exposed to through their practica. The AmeriCorps at North Park University will serve in a program development role, and will help the Catalyst Hub build capacity for service-learning enhanced Catalyst Courses.

As part of the Catalyst Courses initiative, service-learning enhanced Catalyst Courses will specifically support low-income individuals by partnering with after school programs that provide literacy, mentoring, and other interventions to augment their academic success.

North Park University – Pell Cohort

The goal of this project is to build capacity for the Office of Civic Engagement (Catalyst Hub) to develop a cohort of Pell-eligible students for the Catalyst Semester program. The cohort’s academic pursuits will be augmented with Catalyst sessions that encourage academic self-concept by exploring civic engagement-related conversations and experiences. As students begin to understand the systemic and structural issues that often hinder the educational growth of low-income students, the cohort will be encouraged to explore how these factors have impacted their own educational experiences. Program staff hope to enroll 15 students into the cohort over the course of the 2021-2022 academic year. The 20-21 AmeriCorps member will focus on researching existing experiential learning programs to begin developing a program outline and potential curriculum for the following academic year.

To help ensure our students from low-income communities receive healthy food, non-food items, and access to community resources to increase food security, the AmeriCorps Member at Wilbur Wright College will build capacity by assessing the current needs and requirements to adapt the pre-existing processes and systems of the Wright College Healthy Market to reflect social distancing safety protocols and the access challenges from the switch to remote learning caused by COVID-19.

The VISTA project at Bridgewater State University will build capacity for Girls’ Inc Taunton, Bridgewater State University (BSU) Department of Movement Arts, Health Promotion and Leisure Studies (MAHPLS) and the Martin Richard Institute for Social Justice to focus on growing partnership opportunities and expanding existing connections between Girls Inc. and BSU. Through this project, young, low-income girls in Taunton will have the opportunity to increase knowledge, behaviors and skills leading to improved health and informed decision making. Capacity will be built through updating and improving the current Girls Inc curriculum, support the transition of curriculum delivery to online, research and create assessments.

Fifty-two percent of Bunker Hill Community Colleges’ students are low-income and many struggle to manage the expectations of classes with the everyday work needed to live and thrive. The goal of the VISTA project is to build capacity in BHCC’s new campus resource “the DISH”, (Delivering Information Sustenance and Health) which strives to support BHCC students in accessing nutritious foods and understanding the role health plays in their academic success.

The AmeriCorps Member will be on the front-line of the DISH development process by building capacity for the DISH’s operations and management. The DISH Program Associate will build the framework for food resource acquisition, publicity and deployment. They will also develop the sustainable operations procedures, including student intern positions, roles and responsibilities. By developing a deep understanding of the role that the DISH plays in the campus community and beyond the Program Associate will design processes for identifying and managing partnership programming. Finally, the Associate will design and pilot assessment of DISH operations and programming. This position is part of the Division of Student Affairs and reports directly to the Assistant Dean of Students.

College for Social Innovation – Program

The Program AmeriCorps Member will build new partnerships with host organizations (the vast majority of which have an anti-poverty mission), build capacity for 100+ social impact organizations that CFSI works with through additional talent referral and capacity building projects, and enable CFSI to meet the learning and credit completion needs of a diverse group of participants by broadening the number of students who can access an internship related to their academic major and career interests.

College for Social Innovation – Marketing

The Marketing AmeriCorps Member will develop marketing collateral and social media campaigns to showcase the accessibility and life-changing potential of high-impact learning experiences, such as Semester in the City, helping more low-income students access this opportunity.

College for Social Innovation – Recruitment

The Recruitment AmeriCorps Member will develop educational and budget workshops and build partnerships with college success organizations to help low-income college students prepare for successful careers through career workshops and by gaining access to proven high-impact learning opportunities, including the “Semester in the City” program.

College for Social Innovation – Student Support

The Student Support AmeriCorps Member will build capacity for low-income students enrolled in the Semester in the City program to be supported during their participation in the program. Tasks will include: researching, aggregating and publishing information on basic needs security and outside employment for low-income participants. Building capacity for specific monthly peer mentoring/affinity groups for low-income students and working with a social-worker to develop other support programming for low-income student success.

Northern Essex Community College’s (NECC) mission is to educate and inspire students to succeed. NECC provides a welcoming environment focused on teaching and learning-strongly committed to unlocking the potential within each student and empowering our diverse community of learners to meet their individual goals. We are a community college dedicated to creating vibrant and innovative opportunities that encourage excellence and enhance the cultural and economic life of our region. The VISTA project aligns with the Healthy Futures focus area. The AmeriCorps Member will seek to increase the food security of NECC students and the larger community through maintaining and establishing new food security programming to support student success, retention, and completion of students’ academic goals at NECC. This programming expects to benefit at least 500 community college students. The member’s duties will include managing and growing food insecurity programming; recruiting and training volunteers; assessing program effectiveness; and developing resources over the course of the next two to three years.

The AmeriCorps Member at Springfield College will build and support a sustainable math and reading intervention program for youth in grades 3-5 at DeBerry Elementary School in Springfield, MA. The overall goal of the position is to work collaboratively with the Springfield College Education Department and teachers at DeBerry Elementary School to utilize college education majors participating in a required pre-practicum experience in their junior year as intervention specialists in reading and math. The member will develop the capacity of both the elementary school and the college to create alignment between academic requirements of education majors and the pressing needs of the school. The first step in this process is to train a limited number of pre-practicum students to deliver interventions for youth in the core subject areas of math and reading to increase their academic performance, increase their engagement in academics and decrease the number of disciplinary issues.

In recognition of the reality that low income students often need specialized support to successfully complete their college degree, the UMass Dartmouth Leduc Center plans to develop a program, Project Success, that will assist these students to incorporate meaningful service into their college career as a strategy for retention. Our program will target Pell Grant recipients who will reap the benefits of service in terms of increased social capital, personal growth, well-being and connection to their future career with the help and guidance of Retention and Engagement Coaches (RECs). The Campus Compact AmeriCorps Member will be an integral part of the program by working to develop and implement a successful, sustainable program. Additionally, because UMass Dartmouth is located between the post-industrial urban centers of New Bedford and Fall River, the service provided by these students will help community-based organizations meet the needs of the region.

The River Hawk Scholars Academy (RHSA) is a growing student success program for full-time, first-year, UMass Lowell students who identify as first-generation college students or who went through Gear Up, Bottom Line, OneGoal, or another TRIO-based program in the Massachusetts public school systems. The program promotes student success and fosters engagement in the campus and local community by providing holistic support, academic resources and meaningful activities to RHSA students as they transition from high school to a diverse college campus and as they learn what it means to be a college student. The program is designed to facilitate RHSA students’ intellectual and personal growth through the empowerment of self-advocacy and the ability to identify the many opportunities UMass Lowell has to offer. The AmeriCorps Member will build capacity and infrastructure for the program that supports sustainability.

Wheaton College – First Generation/College Success

Wheaton College – YMCA Partnership

Worcester Polytechnic Institute – K-12 Success

The AmeriCorps Member will help build the infrastructure and capacity at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) to sustainably and effectively support PreK-12 students, educators, and families in the Worcester, MA community (i.e., a high poverty area) and greater Central MA region with equitable access to high-quality, integrated, and inclusive STEM education opportunities through a STEM Ecosystem.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute – STEM Outreach

The VISTA projects seek to build the infrastructure and capacity at WPI to sustainably and effectively support K-12 students, educators, and families in the Worcester, MA community (a high poverty area) with equitable access to high-quality, integrated, and inclusive STEM education opportunities. The year two VISTA project will continue work that connects WPI, the Worcester Public Schools (WPS), out-of-school programs, community members connected to STEM, and students/families to more equitable access to high quality STEM education opportunities. This will happen by building on work that piloted professional learning communities for new teachers and their mentors in Worcester. Additionally, the AmeriCorps member will begin a new project that build off partnerships formed in Year 1 of the VISTA project. The AmeriCorps member will work to research and develop models to sustainably train informal educators about high-quality STEM for youth. They can expect to benefit at least 215 low-income students and also impact in-school and out-of-school educators.

This VISTA project will evaluate existing needs and community resources surrounding food insecurity. The AmeriCorps Member will work to expand the capacity of an existing food resource on a university campus to provide additional food to students in need, specifically making nutritious foods available students who may otherwise have limited access to these items, as well as providing other referral and outreach services to holistically address food insecurity in our students. The member will also increase awareness of food insecurity and food resources. Additionally, the member will create service opportunities to foster engagement among Davenport students.

Build United

The goal of the VISTA project at United Way and JMU is to help low-income homeowners remain safely and independently in their homes by supporting the coordination of needed home repairs and modifications. The AmeriCorps member will establish systems to manage the coordination of home repair projects, evaluate, and enhance volunteer recruitment and management, and evaluate the effectiveness of Build United to continue improving services.

Church World Service

The goal of the VISTA project at Church World Service and JMU is to enhance the organizational capacity of James Madison University partner Church World Service to improve financial knowledge of newcomer, low-income, clients by strengthening an inter-organizational collaborative network, enhancing existing programs’ integrity and reach, and recruiting and training volunteers to teach classes and conduct trainings.

Blue Ridge Food Bank

This AmeriCorps member at at the University of Wisconsin – Madison will serve a key role in implementing the University of Wisconsin – Madison’s Civic Action Plan by helping craft and refine a model for mutually-beneficial and sustained partnerships between anti-poverty nonprofit organizations and the university. In the spirit of the Wisconsin Idea – in which the knowledge and value of the university serve the benefit of every resident of the state – the VISTA project will build the capacity of UW-Madison for partnership with Wisconsin nonprofits focused on addressing poverty and especially promoting healthy futures for our communities. This position will be based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Community and Nonprofit Studies (the CommNS) in the School of Human Ecology.