Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA Members play a vital role in building capacity for their host sites across the country. This month, we’re excited to share some perspective from our VISTA Host Site Supervisors, showcasing the kinds of impact VISTA projects can have on anti-poverty initiatives at colleges and universities. Our featured Host Site Supervisors share their reasons for and experiences with hosting a Campus Compact VISTA, demonstrating how the contributions of Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA Members have already made a difference!
University of Texas at El Paso - Naomi Fertman
Why did you want to host a Campus Compact VISTA?
The Center for Community Engagement at UTEP was invested in being a part of reducing food insecurity on campus. We had been working on connecting on and off campus resources and using our boundary spanning capabilities to address this issue. There was no central position on our campus to pull initiatives together and to address this serious issue, and this lack of position made it very challenging to move forward. We were hopeful that a Campus Compact VISTA member could fill this essential role through capacity building both on campus and in the community and by being a much-needed point person for all folks addressing this issue.
What impact has having a VISTA member on your campus made to your project already?
Our VISTA Member, Brianna, has already been an asset to our office and our community. She has taken the time to establish relationships with faculty, staff, students and community members who are working (often in silos) to address food insecurity. She is cataloging all of the resources in our community and putting them together in a way that makes accessing them easier for our students.
University of Nebraska at Omaha - Jason Jones
Why did you want to host a Campus Compact VISTA?
We sought out Campus Compact VISTAs to support our Office of Engagement’s work to impact student social mobility. We recognize the profound impact that targeted support can have on UNO’s at-promise students; students who come from low-income backgrounds, are first-generation college students, and/or are students of color, who often face systemic barriers to social mobility. Hosting Campus Compact VISTA members allows us to gather data that informs our work to engage these students more deeply in volunteerism, service-learning, and career development opportunities, which are essential for building social capital and bridging the gaps in retention, graduation, and post-graduation career attainment. The VISTA program offers the capacity-building resources necessary to expand and refine our efforts, especially in the areas of service learning, civic engagement, volunteerism, and food security.
Our vision for social mobility aligns with Campus Compact’s mission to further equity, justice, and prosperity for all, and placing VISTA members within our programs provides the sustainable structure needed to address these challenges in a meaningful, long-term way. VISTA members not only increase the capacity of our engagement initiatives but also help us assess the impact of these programs on our students' persistence and graduation, as well as on the broader Omaha community. Additionally, VISTA members play a crucial role in addressing food insecurity—a critical issue for our low-income students—by expanding awareness of resources and reducing social stigma.
Ultimately, hosting multiple Campus Compact VISTAs allows us to leverage community partnerships, build sustainable systems, and support our at-promise students more effectively as they navigate their educational and career pathways.
What impact has having a VISTA member on your campus made to your project already?
Having VISTA members on our campus has already made a significant impact on our campus by enhancing our capacity to support low-income, first-generation, and students of color in several key areas:
- The VISTA Members have helped us enhance our volunteerism initiative, supporting infrastructure for our service days. Service days are critical for building students' social capital and engaging students in meaningful, experiential learning opportunities that help them gain practical skills, expand their professional networks, and translate these experiences into career opportunities.
- The VISTA Members have played a pivotal role in developing new systems for tracking and assessing the impact of service-learning programs. This data collection and analysis has given us new insights into how these programs influence student persistence and graduation, especially among at-promise populations.
- VISTA Members have been instrumental in raising awareness about our Maverick Food Pantry (MFP) and addressing the stigma surrounding its use. They have helped streamline support services for students, ensuring easier access to food security resources and working to establish partnerships with local food banks and organizations to sustain these efforts long-term.
Overall, our VISTA Members have strengthened our capacity to serve both our students and the community, laying the groundwork for sustainable, impactful changes that will continue to benefit our project well beyond the VISTA's tenure.
Agnes Scott - Blayne McDonald
Why did you want to host a Campus Compact VISTA?
Agnes Scott College pursued hosting a Campus Compact VISTA to support a community-focused goal set by the joint Climate Resilience Plan (CRP) with the City of Decatur and to bring service-learning to the forefront of conversations with our student body. The CRP goal specifies supporting the Decatur non-profit, MLK Jr. Service Project to foster affordability in our growing community. With the college re-engaging with Campus Compact over the past few years, we were thrilled by the opportunity to apply for an AmeriCorps VISTA through the established partnership that Campus Compact manages.The MLK Jr. Service Project hosts a community service weekend in honor of Dr. King’s vision that “everyone can be great because anybody can serve.” This weekend is a collaborative effort to support older adults in our community through home repairs to ensure they can continue to age in place safely, confidently, and affordably. The Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA is supporting capacity building for this program in the hopes that the services can be scheduled more frequently than once a year along with incorporating formal processes and procedures to ensure continued success. It is through the formal partnership with Campus Compact that the VISTA is serving a vital role as a capacity building liaison between all of our partners within the CRP Task Force and working with groups to create sustainable practices moving forward.
What impact has having a VISTA member on your campus made to your project already?
Within the first two months, our VISTA, Noemi, has successfully navigated two complex collaborative partnerships within our community. She has worked closely with the Decatur non-profit, MLK Jr. Service Project, the City of Decatur, Agnes Scott College and the joint-Climate Resilience Plan Task Force to assist with logistics and coordination of the MLK Service Project service weekend. Noemi has established trust and centered relationship-building with not only the collaborative partners, but also the community members they serve. She is exploring new partnerships with community organizations like LiveThrive, an Atlanta-based nonprofit centered around creating a community that cares about a healthy and sustainable environment; the organization manages the much-needed community service - CHaRM, center for hard to recycle materials. Noemi is coordinating procedures that will hopefully assist us in discarding materials from participating MLK Jr. Service Project homes in a much more environmentally-friendly way. She has also made our partnerships with the City of Decatur and the MLK Jr. Service Project stronger by providing consistent communication and updates. She is truly building capacity around all of our work with the CRP Task Force and implementing plans that otherwise would not be possible at this time all with the focus of supporting our community’s most vulnerable populations.
The Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA Projects at the University of Texas - El Paso, University of Nebraska at Omaha, and Agnes Scott College represent a small subset of our program, but encapsulate some of the diverse ways VISTA resources can be leveraged to address the poverty-related needs experienced by colleges and universities across the country.
Our 2025-26 Application and RFP are now open. To learn more about the Campus Compact VISTA program, please register for our host site info session on November 21st. For more information, please visit our website.