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By Elizabeth Cole

Two weeks ago I replaced my grandfather’s outdated internet browser with one that was more current and theoretically easier to use. After teaching him the basics, I started to show him some of the more advanced tools that I use. I was in the middle of explaining RSS blog feeds when he started to rub his eyes, a sign of mounting frustration. “Ah, Lillibet, I just get worn out with all of this new stuff.” I tried to explain that a RSS feed is like getting newspapers delivered to your computer rather than the door. In the midst of my analogy, which I was pretty proud of, he closed the laptop and stood up. “Thanks, honey, I think that’s all the new information I can handle for today,” he said. I had tried to give my grandfather more than he was prepared to receive, leaving me feeling like a failure and him like a fool.

This got me thinking about generational learning approaches and the implication for volunteer training and orientation. When you organize training opportunities, even informal ones, it is important to remember that adults think and learn differently than young people. With more baby-boomers volunteering than any other age group, a trend that will only intensify as more move towards retirement, understanding the principles of adult education is more important than ever. Here are some hints that will make your training sessions more effective for any age group, but that are especially important for older audiences:

• Emphasize the relevance of the training: Adults will resist material forced on them or that is only vaguely described as being interesting or “good for them to know.” Try to make the training applicable to your volunteers’ daily tasks and not just another lecture they need to sit through before they can get to the “real work” of their service.
• Make it interactive: studies show that we retain only 20% of what we hear in a lecture setting, so consider incorporating discussions, practical exercises, scenarios, role-playing, and writing.
• Construct the session around discussion: Adults learn by relating new material to preexisting knowledge. By discussing their beliefs or past experiences, adults reinforce new information.
• Involve volunteers in planning and implementing training: Giving adults some control over their learning process acknowledges that they are grownups and helps keep them engaged and enthusiastic.
• Be cautious and protective of volunteers’ self esteem: Kids learn to walk by falling down, but mature learners are much less open to trial-and-error than children. Many adults will resist trying something new if it involves the risk of making an error and feeling foolish as a result.
Nonprofits cannot hope to improve their world without first improving their volunteers. Often volunteers are charged with challenging tasks that take a lot of knowledge and training to do well. Whether you are teaching your volunteers to facilitate group discussions or showing a senior how to use the internet, remembering the basics of adult education will help you equip your volunteers to serve with passion and self-confidence.

Elizabeth Cole is an AmeriCorps member with the Maine Commission for Community Service and a presenter at the 2009 Blaine House Conference on Volunteerism.

Resources: Print Resources: Ellis, S. J., & Noyes, K. H. (1990). By the people: A history of Americans as volunteers. (Rev. ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. / Furano K. et al, (1993). Big Brother/Big Sister: A study of program practices. Philadelphia, PA: Public/Private Ventures. / Herman, R.D. (Ed.). (1994). The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Morrison, E.K. (1994). Leadership skills: Developing volunteers for organizational success. Tucson, AZ: Fisher Books. /Roaf, P. A. et al, (1994). Big Brother/Big Sister: A study of volunteer recruitment and screening. Philadelphia, PA: Public/Private Ventures.

By Shannon Brown

After four years of schoolwork, community service projects and other extracurricular activities, I graduated from Providence College in May 2009. While the vast majority of my friends, roommates, and peers headed home to wait out the economic crisis and attempt to find jobs, I packed my car the day after graduation, loaded down with both tank tops and sweatshirts, and prepared my four hour journey from Connecticut to Maine.

For the past four and a half months, I have had the distinct pleasure of acting as the AmeriCorps “Watershed Steward Intern” for the Friends of the Cobbossee Watershed (“Friends”). As a Public and Community Service Studies major, I had an extensive background in public service and work with various non-profit organizations- throughout college, I always figured that I’d volunteer for AmeriCorps at some point in my life. I assumed that being an AmeriCorps volunteer would grant me a great experience and look great for on my resume, as well as offering the added bonus of reducing some of my student loans. Perhaps best of all (though not if you asked my mother) was the opportunity to live anywhere BUT Montville, Connecticut, my hometown. Basically, I was interested in meeting new people, working for a non-profit, and shouldering some good ol’ fashioned responsibility.

What I have gained in my more than four months of experience living and working in Augusta, Maine is more than I ever thought possible. I have met wonderfully kind people, have become well-acquainted with a beautiful area of the state, and most importantly, have learned a tremendous amount of important skills that I plan on taking with me. I’ve been fortunate enough to have been exposed to virtually all areas of a nonprofit organization. My experience working for the Friends gave me the opportunity to see the marketing of the organization, the networking used to accomplish goals, how to fundraise and appeal to donors. With the Friends, I was in charge of a staff of sixteen Courtesy Boat Inspectors, got to paint t-shirts with kids at local summer camps, and dressed up (more than once) as our mascot, Spotter the Otter. For all of my friends that returned home after graduation and attempted to find the first true “career” job out of college, I say to them- you missed out! If only everyone could have had as good of a time as I have had this summer in Maine, working for AmeriCorps and the Friends.

Best of all, though, the Friends has given me a future. When my term with AmeriCorps is completed on October 1, I have decided to stay in the Augusta area. I have made wonderful contacts with local community leaders, have found a fantastic place to live, and have been on job interviews for positions that I could see myself doing. The central Maine community in which I’ve been a part for the past four months has embraced me as a new friend, and I am sticking around to see this budding friendship into fruition. AmeriCorps is the perfect first step for life after college, and I have been blessed to have had such a wonderful opportunity.

Shannon Brown is an AmeriCorps members serving with Friends of the Cobbossee Watershed and a guest blogger.

By Rachel Church

Let me tell you a story from my childhood. I was maybe seven years old, if even that, and watching my Saturday morning television. I can’t tell you what the program was, but I do remember the commercial. It showed starving children standing in muddy water and dying babies in third world countries. The commercial was designed to tug on the heart-strings of adults so that they would donate money to this particular organization, but at my young age it was just too much. I went sobbing to my mother. She calmly explained to me the realities of what I saw. Afterwards, I went into my bedroom and emptied all eight dollars and 27 cents out of my piggy-bank. I told my mother that I wanted to send it, my whole “life” savings, to help the children on the television, so she helped me send it to a good organization that provided food to hungry children all over the world.

This story would have probably escaped my memory if my mother hadn’t mentioned it to me the other day when we were discussing some of the things I have been doing recently. This was the first time I saw injustice in the world and made a conscious decision to do something about it. It was also the first time I felt I could make a difference in the greater community outside my own little world of matchbox cars and Loony Tunes. That idea stayed with me throughout school, from the Earth Saver’s Club and Hall School Helpers in elementary school to organizing food drives with my high school’s student council. In college I continued to do small service projects here and there, like painting soccer goalposts at a local park or volunteering at the soup kitchen. I was a Resident Assistant in the dorms, which was its own unique form of service to the immediate community I belonged to. I was also studying art.

But it was the beginning of my senior year when another big “ah-ha” event happened. I had decided to step back from my role as an RA, and instead looked into the AmeriCorps Service Leader program. I had always had an interested in it, but never felt I had the time until then. When I met with Michael, an AmeriCorps VISTA at the USM Community Service Office, to talk about the program he mentioned his ideas about starting an art-focus community service program at the school. That is when magic happened. It just seemed to be a perfect fit with my skills and interests and the more we talked about it the more excitement filled the room. Right then, the Community Art Initiative was born.

We discussed the power of and need for community-based art in Portland, and the passion and ability of USM artists to make a difference in their community. The mission of the Community Arts Initiative (CAI) was to connect the two. Through my work with the CAI, I have come to realized that particularly in today’s economic climate and time of change, community art is more important that ever

Starting a program from the ground up was not easy. We had to build a student contact list, find projects and community connections, and most importantly figurer out exactly what the Community Art Initiative was and how we wanted to present it to others. It may have been a lot of work, but I had a lot of help from AmeriCorps VISTAs at USM, who had connections to other AmeriCorps Volunteers in community, who had connections to even more community groups and individuals. AmeriCorps members seem to be everywhere! Having those connections were a great benefit in our program, but also personally. I got to meet individuals from many backgrounds and experiences with similar (and sometimes even very different) ideas about service and community.

The AmeriCorps program also provided me with workshops that developed some of the skills I needed. The first one I attended was on figuring out why you as an individual are called to service and how to commutate that to other. It was something I had never thought about before and was an import step in understanding myself and my relationship with community, which ultimately helped me understand my role in the Community Art Initiative. Other workshops topics included mapping your community network and how to work with youth, the latter of which I admit is not my favorite thing but I discovered is inevitable when doing community-based art.

Another thing that made the jobs easier is that we were just so excited about the work we were doing, and with that we created this contagious wave of energy that spread to the people we talked to and the work we did. Thanks to all of this, the first year of the Community Arts Initiative was a huge success, highlighted by a large collaborative mural making project with the Portland Housing Authority, and a classy Community Arts Gala that raised both awareness of community-based art in Portland and a modest amount of money for a Portland-based, non-profit, arts organization, SPIRAL Arts. (For pictures of these events and others, check out http://usm.maine.edu/studentlife/community/students/communityarts.html.)

It was an amazing experience, and after a year we were all blown away by everything we had accomplished in such a short amount of time, included eight youth art classes at community various community venues, two fundraising events for Portland-based, non-profit arts organizations, two studio clean-up days for SPIRAL Arts, help with the Mosaic of Hope to be installed at the Parkside Community Center, an art class for teens and young adults with intellectual & emotional disabilities at STRIVE, and three on-campus community art events.

Where that commercial 15 years ago showed me that I can make a difference in my world, my AmeriCorps experience showed me just how great an impact I can make. Looking back, I know that my work with the Community Art Initiative was so successful because of the network of people I met and skills I gained as part of AmeriCorps program. With that I was able to do so much more than I ever could on my own. And also, for the first time my studies and career goals connected to my desire to make a difference in my world, two aspects of my life which both became more powerful and meaningful connected than they were separate. This experience has truly changed how I will now view my place in this world.

My AmeriCorps Experience is just one unique story. I would encourage anyone to go and discover their own.

Rachel Church is a AmeriCorps Service Leader at the Community Arts Initiative At USM and a guest blogger.

By Rochelle Runge

Volunteering in America, the most comprehensive data ever assembled on volunteer trends and demographics, found that America’s volunteers dedicated more than 8 billion hours of service in 2008, worth an estimated $162 billion.

The fact the volunteering held steady during a time of high unemployment and foreclosure rates was welcome news to nonprofit and government leaders, who are facing increasing demands at a time of dwindling resources. Previous research would suggest that volunteering drops during an economic downturn. Visit the Portland Press Herald to read a related article, Economy can’t stop the volunteer spirit.

Here are some stats for Maine:
- In addition to the 339.6 thousand adults in Maine volunteering in 2008, an extra 38,418 individuals worked with their neighbors to fix a problem or improve a condition in their community but did not serve through an organization. In Maine this type of volunteering is often referred to as “neighboring.”

- Even with the economic crisis, the volunteer rate in Maine remained relatively constant, at 31.8% in 2008. While the neighboring rate increased by more than 10,000 volunteers.

- Maine ranked 2nd in New England in terms of the number of volunteers.

- Maine ranked 7th in the nation for volunteer hours donated per resident.

- Maine volunteers contributed 51.3 million hours of service in 2008 with an economic contribution valued at $981.7.

- In Maine, more than 9,200 people participate in national service (AmeriCorps,VISTA, Senior Corps and Learn and Serve) each year. This year, the Corporation for National and Community Service will commit more than $5,900,000 to support Maine’s national service initiatives.

The research is based on annual surveys of approximately 100,000 individuals collected by the U.S. Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics in partnership with the Corporation for National and Community Service. The VolunteeringInAmerica.gov website contains nine years of data on volunteering, and rankings, volunteer trends and demographic information for every state.

Rochelle Runge is the Public Relations Representative for the Maine Commission for Community Service and a guest blogger.

By Noble Smith

In every generation, some piece of local, regional or Federal legislation, or some momentous activity or occasion or some human event initiates a life-style change, a change that affects almost every aspect of our country.

Certainly when President Obama on April 21st signed into law the Kennedy Service America Act, some recognized instantly, others still were in wonderment, but the volunteer force and its impact on this country’s volunteer sustainability changed abruptly.

Some would say, “so what, it won’t help my pocketbook”, or other phrases such as “what’s in it for me” or “it’s just another bureaucratic labyrinth that will cost more than it’s worth.”

Others, rightfully so, across this country in all walks of life, all age, gender, race and socio-economic groupings are beginning to understand that service to this country through volunteering is now very much apart of our modus operand.

For Maine, the magnitude, complexity and diversity of the Act’s implications are still under intense assessment, planning and organizational implementation. Maine’s existing volunteer commitment and leadership, recognized nationally, has already begun a process, in an orderly business-like manner, to expand, enhance and grow the volunteer movement and its participation at all levels of the State’s needs. These adjustments will start to alter the landscape when the Act becomes effective on October 1st.

But, the impact of this Act is not just for Executive Directors, CEOs and top management. The impact is a bottoms-up initiative with strong top to bottom fiduciary, management and training mandates. The Act’s content has impacts from the smallest to the largest non-profit, to a wide diversity of human service and life-sustaining organizations and to a whole new set of service initiatives.

AmerCorp, alone, will grow from its current 17,000 participants to over 250,000 by 2017. Five new service Corps - Education, Health Futures, Clean Energy, Veterans and Opportunity - will be established thereby providing substantial and expanded volunteering options for local, regional and national service.

The senior administrative staff of MCCS and several Commissioners journeyed to Boston on the Friday start of the Memorial Day Weekend to participate in a historic “listening session” with our national partner – the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS).

The MCCS Commissioners will review in extensive detail the impact that the Service America Act will have on Maine during their annual retreat in June. Once all the legislative enactments are evaluated, MCCS and CNCS have agreed upon the steps that are in the best interest of Maine, our volunteer work force and how Maine can accommodate the new national criteria, a series of postings will be made on MCCS’ web site outlining in detail this most positive generational change.

As you read earlier this week, in the critically important blog by MCCS Executive Director, Maryalice Crofton, just determining the extent, magnitude and potential impacts of the Act represent a Herculean task. The thoughts, insights, guidance and council from all of Maine organizations that garner and encourage volunteer involvement should begin an open dialogue with MCCS.

The years ahead are extraordinarily bright for this State’s volunteer involvement. Maine is extremely fortunate to have a brilliant, hard working professional staff and an expanding group of volunteer Commissioners, all of whom share an exciting vision for the future.

Noble Smith is an MCCS Commissioner and a featured blogger.

By Chris Wolff

To kick off AmeriCorps Week, I would like to highlight the impact of AmeriCorps on the communities in which AmeriCorps members serve, and share some of the highlights from my program. We work hard to match our AmeriCorps members with their host sites based on skills, interests and personalities. Sometimes I tell people that my job is really all about match-making. I learn about the needs of the communities, and get to know the on-site supervisors. I learn a little about the character of the community, and how much support is available for the member, and how much initiative will be needed by the member. After the match-making process is completed and the member has been selected and placed, the placement is then somewhat organic and I can only hope I’ve set up the mechanisms for success based on a solid support structure and clear position descriptions.

More times than not, this process works very well, and the members are well-matched with their host sites. The Island Institute asks the AmeriCorps members to focus 100% of their time on being a part of their host communities: to attend potluck dinners, volunteer for the school plays, attend basketball games, volunteer at the senior luncheons, organize a coastal clean-up project… We expect that the member will have broader-reaching impact in their host communities beyond their direct scope of work. It is an incredible opportunity to just “be” community for 2 years. This immersion in the communities creates a richness and depth of experience for both the AmeriCorps member and their host communities. The impact goes far beyond the immediate expectations of the placement, and creates a lasting impact.

Over the past 10 years of operating the Island Fellows Program, we have placed approximately 75 Fellows in the field. Of those, approximately 20% have settled in their island host communities. Some have married. Some have had children. They continue to work and volunteer in these communities, and are also helping to sustain the schools by adding more children.

In celebration of AmeriCorps week, I would like to share some excerpts from our AmeriCorps member site supervisors regarding the impact of their member in their communities.

“Most important, Alden has become an Islander no one wants to see leave. His care and love of Long Island is obvious. We are having withdrawal symptoms at the idea of his departing. Alden had giant shoes to fill when he arrived as our previous Fellows were absolutely superb. Those shoes he more than filled and in so doing will leave behind a stronger, better community able to face future challenges and needs as a result of his contributions to Long Island.

We thank the Island Institute for this incredible program that has made all of the Fellows available to the Islands over the past years. And, we thank Alden Robinson for his tremendous contributions to Long Island and wish him well in all his future endeavors. You will be sorely missed.”
-Mark Greene, Fellow Advisor, speaking on behalf of Alden Robinson, Long Island Fellow.

“Scott has done a remarkable job doing side tasks, creating opportunities for our community, and offering a helping hand at anything and everything. Scott has spent most of his time at our K-8 school and our preschool and has made an impact on the lives of all of our children. He has spent time mentoring, tutoring, guiding, just hanging and teaching. One child has taken piano lessons and has written and memorized his own piece thanks to Scott. Several others have taken guitar lessons and piano lessons and participated in the talent shows for the past two years. Many other students have worked on art techniques, learning new games for the playground and for all of us a deep appreciation for music, art and physical education.

As many of you know, living on an island, you have a small community that is being forced to keep up with expectations of large communities based on volunteers and the same volunteers for the same ones?

With Scott being part of our community for the past two years has helped ease our load. Having Scott in our community has brought new life, ideas and dedication to make things happen. We have learned a lot and treasure this opportunity for an island fellow and are even more grateful that it’s been Scott. If Frenchboro gets another Fellow they’ll have big shoes to fill. What I value most about Scott is that from day one when he came to Frenchboro, this has been more than just a job for him. He came in and made this place home and allowed it’s residents to be his extended family. For me Scott has been like a brother I never had and I hate seeing him leave but I want him to chase his dreams because he can succeed in anything. Thanks to the Island Institute for bringing him into our lives, for all of the people that funded this project to make it happen and most of all to you Scott for being who you are.”
- Rebecca Lenfestey, Fellow Advisor, commenting on Scott Sell, Frenchboro Fellow

“I had so many visions for the school that I could not possibly have done any of it without Anne. The fellowship means two things, it means this ability to get things done in our community, and then there’s the person part and it’s Anne and it’s just so special. I’ve never seen anybody come into an island community, this tight knit little community that can be so intimate and lovely and wonderful and frustrating and irritating at the same time and Anne just sort of melded in there and it’s just amazing and people just love her there. I just can’t believe how much we have accomplished in two years. We have resources in our school, we have brand new textbooks, we have a curriculum, we have technology we didn’t have before, we have a beautifully painted, warm, cozy interior atmosphere.

I can’t say enough about this program, I really never could have gotten everything done in the last two years without her and I’m so grateful for this program and for the opportunity to go into another school year with a new Fellow who’s going to be working in the school and our new historical society. I’ve made a wonderful, dear, lovely friend that I’ll always have.”
- Natalie Ames, Fellow Advisor, commenting on Matinicus Island Fellow, Anne Bardaglio

“When we’re as lucky as we have been to get Fellows who do good work, who fit into our community, who build strong relationships with colleagues and kids, we want to keep them.

We got David as a Fellow to help us see and embrace the power of experiential, place-based education, especially in isolated maritime communities like ours. What we got along with that was a view and understanding of the power of great teaching because David is a truly great teacher. We saw it first from the kids in their visceral response to his presence in their classrooms, and then in the teachers as they responded, albeit reluctantly at first, to what he was doing – even in his quiet, unobtrusive way of introducing ideas, suggesting activities, leading discussions, and organizing projects.

And this power of great teaching, and great education, is critical in our schools where the direct personal relationship between teacher and child can make the difference between a wonderful, inspiring school experience and a miserable one.

It is to the Island Institute’s great and everlasting credit that it does this for us- that it has provided us with extraordinary, high quality people like David Steckler – great teachers in our case – that contribute to and make better what we do.”
-Barney Hallowell, Fellow Advisor, commenting on North Haven Fellow David Steckler

“The Fellows program is great and has enabled us to expand the services we provide to our patients and raise the quality of care we provide on Vinalhaven.”
-Dinah Moyer, Fellow Advisor and Executive Director of Islands Community Medical Services, commenting on Vinalhaven Public Health Fellow Peter Levandoski

Chris Wolff is a featured blogger and the Community Development Director at the Island Institute.
Learn more about Americorps Week here!

By Alison LePage

To be honest I had never really thought of becoming an AmeriCorps member. I graduated, went on to have a successful career, and 15 years later found myself compelled to respond to a posting that happened across my path for a “Local Foods Advocate.” And now, here I am, halfway through my service with the Eat Local Foods Coalition of Maine.

I know that everyone wishes that they could work for something they believe in or to do something that will truly make a difference. AmeriCorps gave me that opportunity. I had been very involved with the local foods movement for many years, but felt that the impact I was making as an individual wasn’t enough. I needed to find a way to help connect more people in Maine with the bounty of food that is produced here and my service project, the Maine Food Map is doing exactly that.

Through partnerships with organization throughout the state I have been gathering information about everything from farms and fisheries to grain silos and distribution centers. The first phase of the map, slated to launch later this month, will focus on connecting consumers with local food. They will be able to access the map online and search for products in their area. Food producers will be able to add themselves to the map if they are not already there. And a comprehensive collection of data about food production in Maine will instantly be available to anyone. Later in the summer a second map will be launched with resources for producers, including educations resources, store age, processing and more. The combination of the two maps will represent the entire Maine “foodshed.”

Working on this project has not only given me an opportunity to support a cause I believe in, but has resulted in the creation of a tool that continue to connect people, food and farms long past the end of my service term. What more could a local foods advocate wish for?

Alison LePage is an AmeriCorps member with Eat Local Foods Coalition of Maine and a guest blogger.

By Hannah Wilhelm

One of the most rewarding parts of past volunteer experiences for me has been the instant gratification. Several years ago, I helped a Philadelphia nonprofit with a weekend farm stand. I got to meet customers who had searched high and low for grass-fed ground lamb, local organic berries, or Maine sea salt, finally find what they were looking for. I heard their stories about why it was important to them to support local farmers. Other experiences like seeing a trail go from a puddle-filled quagmire to a smooth bed of wood chips, a litter-covered roadside cleaned up, or the look on a child’s face at a festival were so rewarding because I could quickly see the results of my work.

My experience this year as a Maine Conservation Corps Environmental Educator is very different. My placement fits into the Environmental Educator program because my service site, the Biomonitoring Program in the Division of Environmental Assessment at the Department of Environmental Protection (try saying that five times fast), does “in-reach.” We provide water quality information that other parts of the state government, as well as the public, can use for education.

When it comes to studying the impacts on non-point source pollution on water quality, ironclad conclusions about cause and effect can be elusive. Regardless, for water quality education, having accurate information to share is so important. Collecting that information requires long-term, methodical work, as does putting the information to use once people have learned about it. I admire the staff here who work so patiently to keep track of the details of permits, monitoring reports, and state laws that are the action end of the state’s environmental policies. I admire the researchers who sort through all the details of the science that begins long before new policy ideas are developed.

Everybody enjoys something that might seem unusual to others; there’s a place for all of us. I like to untangle balls of yarn that cats have messed with. I know a woman who enjoys removing the wax from rabbits’ ears. Where someone else might cringe, she holds the bunny firmly, smiles, and patiently begins the job.

When it comes to water quality protection, I’m still finding my place, but I’m sure it’s out there. In the introduction to a management plan for the Ogunquit River Watershed (http://swim.wellsreserve.org/results.php?article=658), Tin Smith writes, “Watersheds degrade by insignificant increments. They will have to be restored and protected the same way.” Although much of what I do here at the DEP might feel far-removed from the goal of clean water, being an AmeriCorps volunteer has given me a window into the behind-the-scenes work of cataloguing water quality monitoring data, deepened my respect for the people who do it year after year, and helped me better understand its significance.

Hannah Wilhelm is an AmeriCorps Environmental Educator with the Maine Conservation Corps

By Melissa Boyd

Last Friday, I presented at the 4th annual Southern Maine Council on Transition Youth Conference entitled “Be Your Own Superhero…the sky’s the limit!!” which was a professional conference for high school students with disabilities and others regarding employment and training options available after high school.

My presentation was about my experience as an AmeriCorps member and a person with learning disabilities. I wanted to tell my story about my AmeriCorps experience while encouraging these young people to consider becoming a member themselves.

As a student in elementary, middle and high school I was placed in special classes as I had trouble understanding what I was reading. My math and reading scores were extremely low and my grades were less than average. I can remember my high school guidance counselor telling me to just work at the local grocery store or stay in the field of hospitality and continue to waitress. Deep inside, I knew that I had always wanted to go to college even though my grades were poor. I was accepted into Berkshire Community College and after my first semester, one of my Professors, Karen Border pulled me aside after she had read one of my essays.

“I want to talk with you about something very important” she told me. She helped me understand that I was dyslexic.

I was so relived to find out that I had the ability to retain information. Over the next six months, I learned more about my learning disability and how to work with it. Even today almost twenty years after I was diagnosed, I still struggle at times.

This leads me to my first year of service with AmeriCorps. I was living in Portland at the time and my service placement was half in Portland at the Muskie School and half in Biddeford with Pathways a school for kids who were considered at risk for a variety of reasons, many because of learning disabilities. When I arrived at Pathways, part way by bus and at least ten miles on my bike, the students were amazed that I put in the effort to come every day rain or shine. Our small old parks and recreation building in Biddeford, lacked books, supplies and the resources normal classrooms enjoyed.

One thing that AmeriCorps has taught me is that creativity is indeed the mother of all invention. I worked with the two staff and assistants at the center and we came up with a plan. We needed to teach these students, who had been kicked out of classes, put down and given up on that learning was fun and they could achieve great things. This was no small task and our plan to educate them in a new way was nothing short of inspiring. Our little building sat below the Saco River and the head teacher had experience in boat building. We worked with the students and had them call Home Depot to get supplies for a boat donated and together we built a boat. The art of boat building requires reading, collaboration, math, science and a lot of hard work.

After we finished the boat we had University of New England Environmental students visit our center and teach the kids how to test the water on the Saco River. Our efforts garnered media and political attention. After one year, Pathways was upgraded with a new building, more supplies and more teachers and became a place where students wanted to learn in an alternative way.

I’m happy to report that I am finishing my Masters degree at the Muskie School at the University of Southern Maine in May thanks to Professor Karen Border being my hero!

Service has taught me that everyone can be a hero in their own way. Our life experience not only shapes who we are, it shapes who we become. Consider joining AmeriCorps, a year of service can change your life and benefit others!

Melissa Boyd is a 2 year AmeriCorps Alum, Graduate Student, and Commissioner for the Maine Commission for Community Service.

By Noble Smith

These past few weeks have been momentous for this country capped by two life-long memories – President-elect Obama’s and the Mrs. Obama’s participatory, hands-on involvement with activities surrounding Martin Luther King Day and the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States the following day. These two events will have significant short and sustaining long-term impacts for volunteers and for non-profits nationally and here in Maine.

Just prior to those two spectaculars, the Maine Commission for Community Service reviewed the impact of recent volunteer service in the State of Maine, statistics of which have huge economic, social, ethnic and historic implications, namely:

• With data compiled between 2005 – 2007, 356,000 volunteers dedicate 44.5 million hours of service annually;
• This volunteer service has an estimated economic contribution for volunteer hours served in Maine exceeding $868,000,000 annually;
• More than 9,100 Maine residents participate in national service (AmeriCorps, VISTA,, and Senior Corps) activities each year through 29 projects and programs throughout state;
• The average volunteer hours per Maine resident equals 41.6 hours.

Concurrently and echoing President Obama’s call to national service, AmeriCorps alum and former Secretary of State, Colin Powell reiterated the President’s urging for all Americans to be part of “Renew America Together”, a commitment for everyone “to make a lasting pledge to serve their communities.”

As a country and, indeed, certainly manifested here in Maine, the mandates will be many, varied, more exacting, yet exciting and will add measurably to the short and long-term effectiveness of Maine current and future volunteer initiatives.

But to measure up to the challenges ahead, all of us involved in the volunteer world – staff, organizers, leaders, Commissioners and volunteers themselves – need to step back, assess and reassess our involvements, our effectiveness and whether we are meeting both individual and organizational benchmarks and goals.

President Obama’s commitment to increased national service, the pending implementation of the Hatch Kennedy legislation, and the increasing numbers of citizens who are volunteering – young and old – all of these factors will have an almost immediate impact on our societies AND on our individual and collective abilities to coup with a greatly enhanced influx.

Are we prepared to receive, manage and effectively utilize our forthcoming volunteer workforce?

Each non-profit, those government organizations and private sector businesses who rely upon volunteers must address that question and set in motion a process of evaluating and putting in motion whatever corrective steps are necessary, a process that must also include volunteers as partners and co-equals.

Volunteer aspirations, staff and professional attitudes and skills and non-profits overall are quickly recognizing that changing mandates and their abilities to exceed minimum objectives have become quintessential. There is an enthusiasm, an excitement and a feeling of “yes we can” all of which are beginning to invade the volunteer world.

However, assessment and planning procrastination must not be allowed to fester! With the advent of enthusiastic and strong national leadership coupled with an increasingly powerful volunteer performance in Maine, we are in a handful of states that leads the nation’s volunteer accomplishments.

Maine already provides many volunteer models for other states to replicate and we now have a perfect opportunity to gain another upward step – but it requires the active and participatory involvement of all who are part of the volunteer movement.

Noble Smith is a Commissioner with the Maine Commission for Community Service and a featured blogger.