AmeriCorps members planned and hosted a local nonprofit community services fair to highlight and showcase the services offered in order to connect community members with those who provide essential services in the area.  18 nonprofits were in attendance, available to answer questions, and provide information to the attending community members.

Lisamarie Barnett, Nevada Outdoor School AmeriCorps member, described the nonprofit fair. “All the vendors showed up and were bustling around, arranging their tables and standing ready for the crowd.  The representatives were all very outgoing and eager to answer questions and network with other organizations.”

After the nonprofit fair, AmeriCorps members organized  eight additional volunteers to help the Red Cross canvass neighborhoods and inform residents about fire safety and preparedness.  The outcome was excellent!  300 homes were canvassed in Elko, Nevada and 106 people came to the door and spoke with an AmeriCorps member or a volunteer.  In Winnemucca, Nevada, the group canvassed a total of 200 homes and spoke with 52 people.

AmeriCorps member Kara Jensen, shared her thoughts about her day of service, “One of the things that surprised me was the ease I felt explaining to people what we were trying to accomplish with our canvassing efforts.  Living in a community that has so recently been affected by house fires made me recognize how important fire safety knowledge is and why our service event was so needed.  I was glad to be a part of that.”

Brenna Archibald, an AmeriCorps member also serving through Nevada Outdoor School, summed up the emotions felt by all those involved, “With one day or act of service we may not be able to change the world or the community immediately.  However, the main point that we must all remember and I was happy to be reminded of on Monday was to keep serving.  With constant efforts of service, as well as hard work and optimism, we CAN change the world.  Monday was one step of many to improve the Winnemucca and Elko communities around us for everyone and I couldn’t have been happier to be part of it.  I was reminded to forever keep serving and to also set aside myself as an individual.  By focusing solely on others and working hard so that other people can be the beneficiaries of our efforts instead of ourselves, that is the ultimate experience and purpose of service.”

Thank you Nevada Outdoor School AmeriCorps Members for your service and commitment to our communities!

The 2011 Governor’s Points of Light Awards

–Amanda Boehmer , Nevada Volunteers’ AmeriCorps VISTA

Amanda is serving as the Outreach Volunteer Coordinator at the UNLV Office of Civic Engagement & Diversity

Alex Ellison, Project Coordinator, believes that pledging to serve will inspire Nevadans to volunteer in new and interesting ways. “Volunteering is not just cleaning up trash on the side of the street or pulling weeds at a park. Although those are fine ways to lend a helping hand, there are so many more ways people can use their skills and interests to benefit their communities. The 10^th anniversary of 9-11 is a great time to encourage people to volunteer because we remember the heightened sense of giving that immediately followed 9-11-01.”

Help us reach our goal of 500 pledges across Nevada. Go to www.nevadavolunteers.org or bit.ly/911pledge to make your pledge today!

Alexandra Ellison waits to speak at a UNR Campus Breakfast about student service and service-learning.

Our guest blogger, Alexandra Ellison, has been one of two Nevada Volunteers’ AmeriCorps VISTAs this past year. She has been a passionate advocate of service on the UNR campus in Reno, working through the Honors Program to promote service and service-learning. Her many high-powered initiatives, including a student-faculty poetry project at the local homeless shelter, earned her the distinction of being the Nevada AmeriCorps VISTA of the year. Here is her reflection on what her VISTA service has meant to her:

 The past year as a VISTA, working on the UNR campus and promoting service initiatives, has truly taught me more than I could have ever expected. 

 Convinced that I would go right to graduate school after graduating from Northwestern, I was nervous about taking a year off.  But the “year off” has proven to be a year in full speed, filled with opportunities that graduate school would not have presented to me.  So fast-paced was this year, that I fear, even now, I am not quite ready to hit the books again.  Rather, I am hooked to community engagement, conversations with faculty and students, and working in the belly of what has become the education beast. 

 I have many frustrations with education today, but this year has taught me the rewards that come with chipping away at a seemingly insurmountable barrier.  I have realized that sometimes our greatest frustrations in life can direct us to some of the most rewarding paths.

 Now that I have experienced working in a university setting, specifically with student engagement, I have confidence that this would be a rewarding path for me to follow.  However, there is still so much for me to learn.  My next move is to teach at the high-school level on an 8-month teaching fellowship in Austria.  I am eager to see what this next adventure will unveil, and to go forth with confidence, knowing that this year as a VISTA has equipped me with resourcefulness, intuition, professionalism and insight.

Lyndsey Bohall (center) and Alexandra Ellison, VISTA (left), speak with Kristin Pickard, Volunteer Coordinator for Northern Nevada Hopes (right), about the nonprofit's volunteer needs. Northern Nevada Hopes is Northern Nevada's premier center for HIV/AIDS treatment and care.

How do you keep a volunteer initiative going once it gets off the ground? That is the major question facing Lyndsey Bohall, our Reno 2011 Summer Associate VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America) for the Nevada Volunteers higher education initiative this summer.

Lyndsey is just beginning her sophomore year at the University of Nevada, Reno, and she already has a solid head on her shoulders as well as a tech-savvy perspective on this sustainability question. As part of the Honors Service Council and the UNR Alternative Break Club, she has become familiar with the challenges of connecting college students to service opportunities. Collecting current, in-depth information on who needs help is crucial to matching students to appropriate nonprofits according to areas of interest and skill level.

“One of the problems we have to overcome is that nonprofits may not always hear back from the potential student volunteer after the initial contact,” Lyndsey explained. “With more information available to them, the college students will know what they are getting into up front and will be more likely to follow through.”

She began her summer by surveying area nonprofits to enhance an information database geared to connecting college students with nonprofit volunteer needs. Maintaining a database can be energy intensive, so Lyndsey has been looking at technology to streamline the process. Working with a skill-based volunteer, she is helping to develop an Access-based web form and database that can easily update nonprofit volunteer needs on a periodic basis—a key to sustaining up-to-date information in an easy way. 

Lyndsey sees enormous potential for the database she is working so hard to create. “We want to make the database available for counselors and advisors, so it will be easier for them to guide students who are interested in volunteering,” she said. “And faculty members can use the database to quickly find organizations that they can work with to bring service-learning into a class curriculum.”

Lyndsey is part of a VISTA team that has been working over the span of several years to develop the link between the campus and the community through the Honors Program office at UNR. “But we need to find a way for it to continue beyond the VISTAs,” she said.  They are looking for grants for a student-run center or other possible ways to permanently house and maintain the resources that are being developed.  Whatever solution they find, Lyndsey’s Summer Associate project will be integral to making it work.

Our guest blogger, Rae Lathrop, has been one of two Nevada Volunteers’ AmeriCorps VISTAs this past year. She has promoted service and service-learning for the UNLV campus in Las Vegas. One of her passions as a VISTA has been to start up a networking group for young nonprofit professionals in the Southern Nevada region. Since this is her last week with us, before moving on to become Volunteer Coordinator for the Outside Las Vegas Foundation, we invited her to share her excitement for this new, much needed, group.

Here is what she had to say:

Despite all the economic reports and educational cuts, I feel like Las Vegas is a great place to be. Maybe I’m only talking to the most positive of community members, but I truly feel that great things are happening here. In the past year, I’ve only met people–busy with work and personal commitments—who attempt to bring positivity to everyone they meet and everything they do. I was talking to a woman at a networking event recently and explained my theory that the people who are here are the ones who didn’t flee when times got tough, and they are ready to put in the effort to bring this community back to life. She actually agreed, which surprised me because she doesn’t even work with nonprofits. I didn’t know that others felt this way.

That’s why I think this is the best time to join together and bring all of our positive actions into a cohesive community action. I started working with two other nonprofit staff members last September to create a Young Nonprofit Professionals Network. I was shocked, last year, to find that Southern Nevada didn’t have a great network for nonprofits (though one, the Alliance for Nevada Nonprofits, has recently begun). Also, it seems that the majority of the excited and willing-to-help people that I run into are younger, and we can learn from each other how to be effective leaders and future decision-makers. Over the last year, we’ve seen enthusiasm with every meeting, invitation, and Facebook post. Young people are happy to be a part of something, and we are providing a space for everyone to grow to their full potential.

For those of us who have hung on to our livelihoods and suffered through these dark times, I am committed to making sure that we build a community out of hardship and show others there is good work being done all around us. I had the option to leave town after my AmeriCorps VISTA term, but I am happy to say that I will be here and do my part to positively affect this community.

Anyone can join YNPN of Southern Nevada at www.facebook.com/ynpnsouthernnevada.

Karen, the Volunteer Coordinator for the Tom Vetica Resource Center in Reno, Nevada, knows the importance of a smile to those she serves.