What Does Being a VISTA Mean to Me

As with any program or organization, there is an end goal; a main objective that the personnel are working towards. With NCCC it was to ‘strengthen communities and build leaders through national service.’ At Whole Foods, it’s to teach the community about natural and organic foods to make the earth more sustainable. At VISTA, the main objective- the end result we are all volunteering for, is to end poverty; to fight this epidemic in our country with national service. The way we do it is through community engagement and capacity building. VISTAs come into a poor community, make connections, engage the community, and are supposed to leave with certain tasks completed so that anyone could come into their role and know exactly what to do. That’s all good and great and seems fairly simple… if poverty can even be simple. So there are two questions here: 1. Have I been building capacity and engaging the community and 2. What does poverty and being a VISTA mean to me?

The first question is far easier to answer- like, WAY easier. Have I been building capacity? Well, okay, maybe not that easy, but nonetheless simpler than the question of poverty. I’m not entirely sure if I have begun to build any long lasting, sustaining partnership just yet. My previous blog about the connections I’m making may have been misleading. I am certainly in contact with many potential partners and attempting to create some sort of connection between agencies, but capacity building is all about making a sustainable partnership. Something that will last throughout the entirety of the two parties. A bond so strong that it almost seems foolish to not have had it in place all along. For example, if I were working at a food bank that was lacking in donations, one of my capacity building techniques could be reaching out to local grocery stores and receiving a portion of their goods that cannot be put on the shelves. This partnership makes sense, it should have been there all along. Am I doing anything at the CCC that is comparable to this? At first, I’m unsure. I sort of feel like day in and day out I’m not making a big impact- I’m working on projects that eventually just get put in the trash or won’t get funding to continue, but then I realize that capacity building is all about starting small. I can’t pick up the phone and call an apprenticeship, tell them how wonderful our corpsmembers are, and hang up with a direct hire connection made. It doesn't work that way. The small steps I make every day, the follow up emails, the phone calls I make to our current apprenticeship partner- that’s the sort of stuff that builds sustainable connections. Granted I have been blessed with a strong partnership already from the VISTA before me and all the hard work she had done before I got here- the partnership she created so I could step in and know exactly what to do and where to start. In a way, I am building capacity… in a way. I hope by the end of my year I’ll go back to this question and say, “I made that strong bond between agencies and that’s going to last for a while.”

As for engaging the community… It’s a little different at the CCC than it would be working at a food bank. The community we’re talking about here is the corpsmembers. They are the reason that I’m in the office every day and it is easy for people to lose sight of that. In fact, I feel as though there are many HQ employees that have lost sight of that. One thing I remember most at NCCC is the Regional Director always telling the Team Leaders “We are here for you and you are here for the corpsmembers.” He would always say that and anytime I would make a decision (well, majority of the time unless it involved going out of our way to see Dana’s team…) I would revert back to that advice. I am here for the corpsmembers. And a year later, I find myself thinking the same thing. I am not trying to making a connection with apprenticeships for myself, I mean, it might be kind of cool to become a sheet metal worker, but I am not in the business of self-promotion  right now. When I first started here, I was a little hesitant to talk to corpsmembers. To be quite honest, I found them sort of intimidating, which is strange considering I spent the previous 11 months bossing them around, but the corpsmembers here are always dirty and tired from the hard work they did and they were probably intimidated by me. More recently I've found that when I think back to the advice I got from NCCC, all I want to do is talk with the corpsmembers. So, really, the answer to the question is No, I haven’t engaged the community yet. I haven’t found out what they desire for employment after they leave the corps. If there is one thing I succeed at this year, I hope it’s being able to connect with corpsmembers and find some interests they have, instead of blinding creating partnerships that they don’t want any part of.

Now, onto the lighter subjects… Just kidding, we’re talking about poverty.

What does poverty and being a VISTA mean to me. Well, that’s a really tough subject. At our Pre-Service Orientation (PSO) in Denver in April, we had a very open and honest talk about what Poverty is. Now, growing up in Chelmsford and going to college in North Andover didn't expose me to much poverty, but my volunteer work with Campus Ministry at soup kitchens in Lawrence gave me a little taste. At first I thought poverty juts mean being poor or homeless- living on the streets and not having a job. And maybe that is what poverty overall is, but at PSO, I learned there are so many more levels of poverty, things I had never even realized, considered, thought about until other VISTAs opened my eyes to it. Poverty is an epidemic. It’s a cycle that’s never ending and it runs rampant in our country. Poverty doesn't discriminate against people. And not all people choose poverty. Who would willingly spend their days on the streets with no food, water, or clean clothing? There are people who are trapped in poverty and are complacent, sure, just like there are people content with their 9-5 desk job that they have done for 35 years. One thing that everyone should be aware of, though, is that these complacent people are not the majority of poor people. The majority of homeless people are struggling to make their ends meet and are motivated to do bigger and better things, but they are trapped. They can’t get a higher paying wage because they are homeless, but they can’t afford anything other than the homeless lifestyle. It’s a cycle- if you take nothing out of this lengthy paragraph, let it be that poverty and homelessness is a cycle and those who are able to get out of this cycle are what all VISTAs hope their communities become. Right here in Sacramento, I see more poor and homeless people than I have ever seen before. And it’s not pretty and it’s not easy to talk about and poverty has a different meaning to everyone, so don’t think that my definition or that my way of thinking about poverty is right because it certainly is not, it just my opinion of a hard way of life.

I don’t want to go down that path too much because it’s a sensitive and sort of controversial topic, as I’m learning through my year. The main point I wanted to touch on with poverty concerns my similar take on corpsmembers. That is who I am here for. The CCC recruits most of their corpsmembers from locations with at-risk youths. This includes young adults ages 18-25 who are homeless, don’t have a high school diploma, are aging out of foster care, or don’t have the necessary means to live independently. And like I said, poverty is a cycle, but those corpsmembers who come from a disadvantaged background enter the CCC with a different mindset and leave with what we hope to be the ultimate success story. So, like I said- these are the people I am here for. I have committed myself to another year of national service to give back to young people who may not be able to help themselves. These members may have been stuck in poverty for the entire lives with no idea how to get out and then they find themselves learning the meaning of hard work and bringing in minimum wage. We hope that these members will be able to grasp their new reality and continue on this lifestyle. That is who I’m here for. That’s what being a VISTA means to me. That’s why I live on a living stipend less than a CCC corpsmember- to engage with my community and to help them succeed in life and become something greater. I plan on doing another post like this closer to the end of my year and seeing how my mindset has changed or not changed… I guess we will wait to see what else this year has in store.