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Serve Wisconsin -
July 2020 Newsletter
Articles this month:
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 Serve Wisconsin announces $7.3 million in federal funding for
28 Wisconsin AmeriCorps programs
Serve Wisconsin proudly announces that Wisconsin has received $7.3 million in AmeriCorps funding from the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the federal agency responsible for AmeriCorps and other national service programs. This funding will support 28 AmeriCorps programs, including 3 new programs. Additionally, the funding will support three organizations with planning grants in their efforts to start new AmeriCorps programs.
"This funding will put 900 AmeriCorps members on the ground to make a difference for local communities, which will be invaluable this year as our state continues to grapple with the effects of COVID-19," said Jeanne Duffy, Executive Director of Serve Wisconsin.
"These AmeriCorps members will continue and expand upon the service of AmeriCorps member, who have served well over 150,000 hours in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The service by these new AmeriCorps members will be critical in providing assistance with local recovery efforts and in tackling some of the toughest problems in Wisconsin, many of which have been exacerbated in recent months, including the opioid epidemic, the academic achievement gap, healthcare access, and housing shortages for low-income families," Duffy continued.
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AmeriCorps members in Wisconsin have served over 150,000 hours helping to respond to COVID-19!
Wisconsin AmeriCorps members have served over 150,000 hours helping to respond to community needs throughout the state during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the closure of schools and other community resources in March, AmeriCorps members in Wisconsin have continued to "get things done" by providing virtual assistance to students completing coursework at home, packing and distributing meals at food banks and school meal programs, conducting in-person and virtual summer day camps, assisting with contact tracing and patient follow-up calls, assembling and distributing face masks, creating virtual content on community resources, answering COVID-19 hotline calls, assisting various community organizations serving those in need, and completing numerous additional local community projects.
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Serve Wisconsin Receives VGF Grant to Strengthen Disaster Response Efforts by Localized Volunteer Groups
Serve Wisconsin received a
$235,917 2020 Volunteer Generation Fund (VGF) grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) to develop local Community/Volunteer Organizations Active in Disasters (COAD/VOAD).
Over the past several years and during the current COVID-19 crisis, Serve Wisconsin has assessed the current disaster preparedness, response, and recovery efforts throughout the state and have identified specific gaps within this arena, including the absence of local COAD/VOADs and the resources for cohesive volunteer engagement and management. The goal of local COAD/VOADs is to actively involve those in their communities in disaster preparedness efforts and to ensure effective response and coordination amongst responders during disaster recovery efforts. Currently, there are on
ly two VOADs active in the entire state.
"Serve Wisconsin is excited to begin working with communities throughout the state to develop local Community/Volunteer Organizations Active in Disasters. This initiative will strengthen Wisconsin by providing the local communities the ability to better prepare, respond, and recovery from disaster events," said Ruhamah Bauman, Disaster Response Coordinator with Serve Wisconsin.
"Serve Wisconsin will use the VGF funding to support the efforts of all streams of national service in Wisconsin to prepare, respond, and recover from disasters by building a national service volunteer force across the state and strengthening the partnerships and collaborative efforts in the local communities between national service, volunteer organizations, businesses, and governments statewide," said Jeanne Duffy, Executive Director of Serve Wisconsin.
Press Announcements of VGF Funding
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AmeriCorps members serving at
Camp Whitcomb/Mason "get things done" for day-campers and the Milwaukee community
During their first four weeks, they have provided
o
ver 325 hours of environmental education and outdoor in-person
programming to 118 day-campers from Waukesha County. The AmeriCorps members have also made several resources for campers and children participating in programming at BGCGM sites throughout the Milwaukee area, including 28 sewn masks, 35 no-sew masks, 64 ear savers for masks, 128 imagination kits full of art supplies, and 10 online programming videos. In addition to these projects, the have served several hours in the community helping other organizations that were impacted by COVID-19 and removed over 7,500 square yards of invasive species.
"Our members have been motivated and passionate about their service. It is clearly shown by what they have been able to achieve so far!" said Molly Modrzynski, Director of Camp Programs.
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AmeriCorps member with Blugold Beginnings builds cultural competency through service to bolster his future teaching
AmeriCorps member Alex Hintz was
spotlighted by the university
for his efforts to develop his cultural competence through his AmeriCorps service and participation in numerous programs and trips through the Intercultural Immersion Office at UW-Eau Claire.
Alex serves with Blugold Beginnings, which provides mentorship and STEAM education programming to local students.
When Alex Hintz started as a student at UW-Eau Claire, he knew he wanted to pursue a career in education. His experience as an AmeriCorps member has dramatically impacted the course his passion for teaching has taken.
"Once I got to campus, I decided to spread my net and see what opportunities I could capture while I was here," said Hintz. "Turns out, there are a ton of opportunities. Every day I was learning new things, especially about different populations. Blugold Beginnings and immersions and other experiences really shaped my time here...I knew as a future educator I had to step it up. How was I going to teach kids if I didn't understand who they are and what they've experienced? I knew I needed to try to understand and learn more."
"The population we serve is mostly underrepresented, low-income students, and first generation students of color... that has been a big part of my development in terms of being able to teach and...I feel more confident in the classroom teaching students with similar backgrounds," said Hintz.
Alex has held several positions with Blugold Beginnings over the last few years, including as a mentor, site coordinator, intern, and camp counselor, with his recent AmeriCorps service focused on working with leaders at the service sites, working with the AmeriCorps mentors to build up their skills, and serving with the STEAM education virtual day camps this summer. "It's been an amazing experience. I started out as a mentor and then got more and more involved, including serving in different leadership roles," said Hintz.
Articles and interviews with Alex
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"Chop and Talk" sessions provide opportunity for volunteering and discussing topics of racial justice in Central Wisconsin
As a way to combine volunteer efforts helping the community and promote learning around issues on race and racism,
MCHS Volunteer AmeriCorps Wisconsin member Ella Janson is helping to organize "Chop and Talk" sessions while serving at Central Rivers Farmshed in Stevens Point. These sessions are part of #ProjectAwareness, which is being organized by CREATE Portage County to foster a community learning experience designed to grow our understanding of race in Central Wisconsin.
"It's a meaningful way to bring people together. Food has always been a point of deep conversation. Once we begin chopping vegetables, you begin to see people open up and connect to one another," said Trevor Drake, Local Food Manager at Farmshed.
During the Wednesday night volunteer shifts, while volunteers are chopping local vegetables to freeze for Farmshed's Frozen Assets project, they will be listening to and having discussions about chapters from one of the books selected by #ProjectAwareness. During their first "Chop and Talk" session in mid-July, volunteers cut and processed broccoli from two local farms while listening to the introduction and first chapter of Dr. Ibram Kendi's book,
How to Be an Antiracist. The "Chop and Talk" sessions will continue every Wednesday throughout the Frozen Asset processing season as volunteers look to continue making a difference in their local community through their volunteer service and exploring issues of racial justice.
Ellan Janson explained that by hosting the "Chop and Talk" sessions, it is "Farmshed's intention to provide a safe and engaging environment that would allow our volunteers and staff to tackle issues of race and the unjust treatment of BIPOC (Black, Indigenousand People of Color). Overall, we were hoping that by listening to chapters of this book together we would be able to learn together, all while serving our goal of providing fresh, organic, and local vegetables to our community."
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Upcoming launch of the
Sixteenth Street Community HealthCorps
As a federally qualified community health center based in the Southside of Milwaukee for over fifty years, SSCHC improves the health and well-being of their patients and community by providing quality, patient-centered, family-based health care, education and social services free from linguistic, cultural and economic barriers.
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Blugold Beginnings AmeriCorps members and volunteers from local tech firms host virtual coding camp
When the STEAM summer day camps with
Blugold Beginnings
shifted to a virtual format this year due to COVID-19, the AmeriCorps members and community partners that help to organize the camps got to work.
"We have an amazing committee of area professionals that worked all year to plan and implement our Coding Camp. We had to pivot to an online model and several committee members invested hundreds of hours in creating online videos and tutorials to make this possible," said Jodi Thesing-Ritter, executive director for diversity and inclusion at UW-Eau Claire.
The coding camp this year is a collaboration between ten Blugold Beginnings AmeriCorps members, who are also students at UW-Eau Claire, and over fifteen volunteers from local tech firms.
"I'm so happy to have been part of the camp this year," said Joe Rupslauskas, a UW-Eau Claire alumnus who works in the engineering department at Jamf. "Having been a part of the camp in years past with all the fun, face-to-face activities, I had some reservations as to whether or not it was even possible to bring it to an online platform. In the end, we came up with a fun week of activities."
"I strongly believe in the importance of teaching kids coding," said Katie Albin, a fifth-grade teacher at Sherman Elementary School in Eau Claire who has volunteered for the coding camp since being a teacher participant in 2017. "I've worked with the camp for several years now, but this year going virtual was an entirely new experience. The team had to come up with a curriculum that would work on a wide variety of devices and services the learning needs of the campers at a distance, all while being done virtually. In the end, I feel we created an excellent program that we'll be able to use in future camps as well."
Media coverage of Blugold Beginnings virtual summer camps
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Serve Wisconsin is continuing our series of video interviews with AmeriCorps members highlighting their service
during the COVID-19 pandemic.
AmeriCorps members from throughout the state have stepped up to make a difference in numerous ways over the past few months.
Their service has not only impacted their communities and the lives of others, but it has also impacted the paths they are personally planning to take following their service.
Links to the next six interviews in this series, which were recorded and posted this July, are listed below with a brief description of each video. To view our additional interviews as they are posted, you can follow Serve Wisconsin's
Facebook page,
Twitter page, or
YouTube channel. AmeriCorps members interested in participating in this interview series can contact Kyle Clower with Serve Wisconsin at
[email protected].
INTERVIEW LINKS
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Serve Wisconsin to host virtual AmeriCorps Grant Writing Workshop session on August 12
Serve Wisconsin will be holding a virtual AmeriCorps Grant Writing Workshop through a combination of posted pre-recorded video recordings and a Live Q&A Session on Wednesday, August 12 from 9:30-10:30 a.m. to address questions from potential applicants for AmeriCorps grants.
The Live Q&A Session on August 12 will be conducted by Serve Wisconsin and Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative (WEC) staff. You may send questions ahead of time to Alexis Matthews (
[email protected]) or bring them to the Live Q&A Session on August 12. This session will be the only time before the fall Competitive AmeriCorps RFP is released that both Serve Wisconsin staff and WEC staff will be together to answer questions.
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Complete your Community Project
AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) are teams of 18-24 year-olds that travel regionally to help communities meet their critical needs by completing projects that typically last 6-8 weeks. These projects address five main service areas: natural and other disasters, energy conservation, environmental stewardship and conservation, infrastructure improvement, and urban and rural development. NCCC partners with a variety of nonprofit organizations, government entities (federal, state or local), educational institutions, neighborhood associations, Native American Tribal Councils, and community-based or faith-based organizations to complete projects which address a compelling community need.
NCCC has released its
Request for Proposal for 2021 service dates, with the application dates spread across the next several months, as they are based upon the time of year an NCCC AmeriCorps team would be performing their project.
NCCC is hosting webinars on August 6 and August 19 for anyone who is not familiar with the organization and would like to learn more about AmeriCorps NCCC as a resource for their community. Those interested in attending can click on this
webinar registration link, with the same information being covered at both webinars and by registering you can attend on either date.
AmeriCorps NCCC Overview Webinars for North Central Region Sponsoring Organizations (registration link)
- August 6th -- 2:00 to 2:45 p.m. CST
- August 19th -- 10:00 to 10:45 a.m. CST
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Become an AmeriCorps Member Today!
If you wish to engage in meaningful community service and acquire job skills, consider joining AmeriCorps!
To learn more about AmeriCorps or if you are ready to join and have questions about which program is right for you, contact us! We are happy to answer your questions and help you explore the different opportunities available.
Program information is also available on our
Serve Wisconsin
website.
We look forward to speaking with you!
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Interesting in serving as a member of the Wisconsin National and Community Service Board?
For those interested in taking an active role in promoting national service and volunteerism in Wisconsin, the Wisconsin National and Community Service Board has a current or pending vacancy for board members for the following appointment type:
- An individual between the ages of 16 and 25, inclusive, who is a participant or supervisor of a service program for school-aged youth, or of a campus-based or national service program
Those interested in serving are required to complete an application to the governor for the appointment. The online application for applying for a board position can be found
HERE, with additional information on the application process found at
Apply to Serve - Governor Tony Evers. If you are potentially interested in serving on the board and have any questions, please contact Serve Wisconsin Executive Director Jeanne Duffy at
[email protected].
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Calendar: Upcoming Events and Key Dates
AUGUST
- August 12 - AmeriCorps Grant Writing Workshop - Virtual Live Q&A Session
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See what's happening on our social media sites:
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