Carefree Property Services of Milbridge Honored with Small Business Volunteerism Award

Posted on April 24, 2013 by VM Tech

The Governor’s Awards for Service and Volunteerism Small Business Volunteerism category recognizes a small business (fewer than 100 employees) that demonstrates volunteer leadership and/or whose employees’ volunteer service significantly improves the quality of life in the community.

Carefree Property Services owners Brian and Sunshine Strout

Carefree Property Services provides landscaping, maintenance, snow plowing and other services. Owners, Brian & Sunshine Strout, have made a positive impact on Downeast communities from Steuben to Addison for the past three years, donating more than 430 hours towards worthy community events and services.

Sunshine serves as vice president of the Milbridge Area Merchants Association. Brian is vice president of the Mason’s Square & Compass Club, is a Junior Warden of the Lodge, and is a 2nd Lieutenant in the Shriner’s Mini-Car Unit. They are crucial to the success of the Milbridge Area Merchants Association‘s Scholarship Fund by organizing and participating in annual fundraisers such as the Down East Idol Talent Show and the Chili Cook-off contest. Their strong sense of teamwork and volunteerism has benefited not only the merchant group, but the Down East community as a whole.

First Lady Anne LePage presents the Small Business Volunteerism Award to Sunshine and Brian Strout of Carefree Property Services in Milbridge with assistance from Drew Matlins, chair of the Maine Commission for Community Service.

Carefree Property Services is instrumental each year during the annual Breakfast With Santa event, which enables 150 children to enjoy a nutritious breakfast, receive gifts, and have a portrait taken with Santa, all for no charge.

Carefree Property Services also provides free mowing services for non-profit organizations, churches, and the historic Parish Hall in Steuben. This family owned-business is committed to serving their community in a myriad of ways.

Since 1987, the Governor’s Awards for Service and Volunteerism have celebrated and recognized the exemplary work of Maine’s most dedicated citizens. At the same time, the awards seek to inspire others to follow in the footsteps of those recognized. Through their donated time and talent, volunteers help communities stretch finite cash resources to deliver the most service possible.

Founded during Governor McKernan’s administration, the program has continued uninterrupted. It is managed on behalf of the Office of the Governor by the Maine Commission for Community Service. The 2013 awards were presented to honorees by Maine’s First Lady Ann LePage on April 24, 2013 in the Hall of Flags in Augusta.

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Spring Cleaning for Stale Energy

Posted on April 18, 2013 by VM Tech

by Anne Schink

“Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?” Believe it or not this was a popular song many years ago. Does it speak to the way you feel about your job today?

Lately I have talked to several people who say they have lost the zest they had for their current position and they are worried about what to do about it. Maybe it’s time for a critical self-assessment.

Do you feel you are getting stale? It may be time to consider what to do to regain your positive energy and optimistic view about your work.

Of course, the most obvious question is: Is it time to leave? While it may be the most obvious question, it may not be the opportune time for you to leap out of a comfortable and rewarding position.

You are very fortunate if you are able to feel comfortable exploring these questions with your supervisor or a trusted colleague in your organization. First you may want to walk through these questions in your own mind before you discuss it with anyone.

Did you create the position? And grow it to its current success? That should feel like a good thing, but maybe you are one of those people who like the creation process but not the maintenance. Take the time to assess the root of your feelings.

Could you shed some of the 50% of the work that bores you in order to focus on the parts you love? Are you happier when you are narrowly focused? Has the position grown in such a way that you feel scattered and drawn away from the parts of the work you are good at?

Are you someone who needs a challenge? Take that into consideration while you ponder these questions. Your organization may have other opportunities that may not require you to leave your current position.

Could you restructure your position? It may be time to ask for a new assignment to broaden the range of work you are doing and to learn new skills.

Do you feel you have stopped growing? Have you taken advantage of training opportunities that have come your way? Are you participating in a peer network of those with similar positions in other organizations? Or is it time to start one?

We all want to feel passion for the work we are doing. Sometimes we need to step back from the day to day work and consider what we really love. Spring is a perfect time to clean out the beds of dead stuff and plant some new seeds. Dream, clean, and plant. That goes for your career too.

Anne B. Schink, a From the Field featured blogger, is a volunteer management consultant and the author of the Nonprofit Readiness Toolkit.

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What Will You(th) Bring to the Table?

Posted on April 12, 2013 by VM Tech

by Laura Rog

We’re thinking a lot about child hunger at generationOn right now, and how we help scaffold youth to understand and act on such a complicated and critical issue. As a result of launching our “What Will You Bring to the Table?” initiative on March 18th, we’re learning a lot from kids, teens, and adults across the nation who are making a difference in their communities and providing their time, talent, and resources where it’s needed most.

Talking with youth about hunger and other sensitive issues is incredibly important to encouraging civic-minded behaviors surrounding an issue that affects more than 1 in 5 children in the United States, but it can also be intimidating if you have not had a lot of experience with the topic at hand. And on the flipside, many adults assume they know the wants and needs of the populations they are working with, and end up telling youth what they should think and feel rather than engaging them in experience to come to conclusions on their own.

Quality facilitation is essential to creating an environment where youth can address sensitive issues in thoughtful ways, and create agents of change that honor the environments and experiences of the community they are serving within. One of the easiest ways to do more harm than good in a service or service-learning project is to create an experience that ends up doing something “nice” or “cute” rather than effective, or even worse, reinforces a sense of pity for the population who benefits from the service. Projects should seek to make youth more empathetic beings that can understand and act without a sense of guilt or obligation, and shift the service paradigm to providing experiences for youth to see their own well being intertwined within the success of their community.

To further illustrate these thoughts and make the most of your service-learning experiences, I offer a couple key tips and suggestions from the stories we are hearing from across the country in our child hunger initiative:

Seek to understand the issue thoroughly. It’s easy to have kids bring in cans of food, or volunteer in a garden for a day. Using reflection before, during, and after the experience helps students grasp why these actions have a greater impact beyond that day, and knowing about the impact on other youth can increase the likelihood they’ll participate in future service experiences. Many of our participants used videos to introduce topics surrounding child hunger and inspire conversations to dig deeper into the issue.

Look to address immediate needs with an eye on building sustainable solutions. Work with youth to understand that there are various ways to meet needs in a community. Oftentimes, communities need immediate action to address a pressing need – like holding a can drive when a food pantry is running out of their stock – but also need long term solutions – like making fresh and affordable food items available – to eradicate the issues at their source. L.A. Works is a perfect example of how to focus on local and sustainable; with their youth activists living in the community they are serving, their mission has been to create produce bags to serve the immediate issue while also developing longer terms solutions through communal and home gardens.

Focus on possibilities. Again and again, we’re seeing child hunger-focused projects that not only serve a neighborhood, but engage all stakeholders in the betterment of their own community. It is important to see that an issue doesn’t need an outside solution, but that given time, social capital, and opportunity, anyone can make a difference. The Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Alabama had an innovative idea: make gardens-to-go, so local families could not only pick up produce from the community garden, but also bring a small, personalized garden home with them to produce fresh vegetables for months to come. The youth themselves were able to bring the plants home and put their new gardening skills to use while also helping provide for their families.

Our “What Will You Bring to the Table?” schools, families and youth groups are bringing so much to our initiative, teaching us at generationOn that though child hunger can be a hard topic to address it is a significant and critical opportunity for youth to genuinely engage in their own community.

Laura Rog is the Director of Training and Technical Assistance with generationOn and a featured blogger.

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Meetings and Our Circles of Conflict

Posted on March 27, 2013 by VM Tech

by Jane Haskell

When we work with groups, we can help individuals in the group shift from thinking about personal agendas, axes to grind, positions, pet projects, or whatever we (or they) want to call it. We can encourage the group of individuals (including ourselves) to think about the common interest that brought us all together. Some view this as a shift from confrontation of positions to collaboration around a common interest.

Conflicts that are unresolved are frequently being discussed as a personality conflict, a value conflict or as someone’s fault based on a previous act. This is because people are unable to change their personalities, cannot change history and are rarely open to changing their values. Furthermore, conversations that are focused in these ways tend to create a great deal of animosity and resistance, and yet these conversations are extremely common.

What creates productive group discussion is to shift the focus to areas where there is or can be resolution: information, interests and structure. Interests are the concerns, desires, needs, and aspirations people have about a task, issue, or problem that people want satisfied or addressed. Information is relatively self-explanatory – we have all been in situations where the source of conflict is inadequate or inaccurate information. Structure refers to anything external to the individuals including geography (too far for some people to travel to the meeting), reporting structures (the supervisor and supervisee are in the same meeting and there is a palpable tension between the two), compensation systems, physical environment of the meeting, etc.

Andy Dorr, Island Fellow

When we look at these six sources of conflict in a circle composed of wedges, three may be considered as on the top half of the circle (personality, history, values) while the bottom half of the circle has as its components information, interests, and structure. Andy Dorr, 2013 AmeriCorps member working as an Island Fellow on Vinalhaven, Maine, recently guided learning in this area with UMaine facilitation training cohorts, and developed a circle of conflict to use as a guide, below. Click on the image to show full sized.

Circle of Conflict

A worthy 10 minute activity, similar to one that Andy used with the facilitation training cohort, is to contact one or more friends, share this concept and ask for a bit of time, either face-to-face, by phone, FaceTime, ichat, or whatever method works for you, to sort out various reasons for conflict in your groups.

Steps:

1. Consider conflicts in your life (or group) that resolved well or did not resolve well.

2. Jot down one to three conflicts. Then each person silently reflects if the focus of the conflict was on the top half of the circle (personality, history, values) or the bottom half of the circle (information, interests, and structure).

3. As a group quickly share where your conflict foci were located. (You may have a huge ‘aha’ moment when you realize why some conflicts were never resolved).

As group leaders and participants, discussions involving the group’s values and history are part of many facilitation/group processes and can be a valuable part. It is important for us to notice how these questions play out in our groups. If you and your friends have a bit more time, discuss these questions.

• How do we as facilitators or group leaders sometimes inadvertently focus discussion on the top half of the circle in ways that are unhelpful?
• How do we make a shift in the group’s discussion when participants are focusing on the top half of the circle – i.e. we can acknowledge differences in personality, values and based in history (the top half of the circle) and then shift the discussion to information, interests, and structure (bottom half)?

For more information on effective facilitation techniques or training opportunities, go the UMaine Cooperative Extension Strengthening Your Facilitation Skills website.

Credit: Material adapted from Jane Haskell and Gabe McPhail, Strengthening Your Facilitation Skills, Level 2 Curriculum. (Orono, ME: UMaine Cooperative Extension, 2012).

Jane Haskell is an Extension Professor with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension and a Featured Blogger.

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Using National Service to Promote Service-Learning

Posted on March 21, 2013 by VM Tech

by Laura Rog

AmeriCorps Week, which we observed last week, is always a reminder of the important service work going on across the country as well as the legacy of national service that has been established over the past several decades. From the inception of programs in the 1960s such as the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) and Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), to the advent of Learn and Serve America (LSA) and a formalized AmeriCorps structure in the 1990s, service has been a cornerstone to how we engage as Americans in our communities.

During the weeks honoring national service each year (Senior Corps Week is in May), it’s important that we don’t forget that youth are a part of this service equation. AmeriCorps opportunities are traditionally aimed at adults looking to use their skills and talents to create change – change in their communities, change in their career trajectories, and change that leaves a lasting impression on both service providers and recipients. Youth in this equation are typically the recipients of service. For example, programs are aimed at providing youth with tutoring or mentoring to improve their literacy skills or math scores, finding caring adults to make physical improvements to their schools, or providing youth with disaster relief services. While these types of service are certainly important and are crucial to providing youth with critical services that support their growth, we as a nation of service practitioners also need to be conscious of how we share and encourage a legacy of service with youth, engaging them to be contributors within the process.

Learn and Serve America was particularly at the heart of youth service initiatives across the country. Funded to support academically-based service experiences in K-12 and higher education settings, it was one of the few federally-supported service initiatives aimed at engaging youth actively in change rather than as recipients of service. Eliminated in 2011, LSA has yet to be reinstated and is not likely to be restored according to current projections, leading to the need for new and innovative solutions to uphold the momentum service-learning has gained in the last two decades.

In the absence of federal funding, organizations hosting AmeriCorps members can and should think creatively to address the need for youth-based service opportunities across the country. Shifting practices to include opportunities to engage youth in service and service-learning might include using AmeriCorps members to:

- Train teachers in the service-learning stages, and how service-learning can be used as an academic engagement strategy. For example, AmeriCorps members could hold a workshop during a professional development day, and/or provide direct classroom support to teachers during the development, implementation, and assessment of their service-learning experiences.
- Seek out community members to partner with the school. Helping schools increase the number of community partners and parents they engage both provides additional support for the teachers and also helps community organizations develop or expand youth volunteering opportunities.
- Work with the school to add service/service-learning elements to already existing events and activities. For example, AmeriCorps members can create service project tables during a family game night at the school.

Service-learning is a key civic engagement strategy to engage youth and address the service opportunity gap that now exists at federal and state levels with the elimination of the Learn and Serve America program. Supporting service-learning through other service initiatives gives youth the opportunity to become part of the larger national movement and to develop within the context of service. Quality service-learning holds youth voice and engagement as a central tenet to its process, and provides opportunities for youth to grow socially and academically while engaging in service experiences. Not only do youth benefit from the service provided, but with support from adult scaffolding, they are the catalysts of action and drivers of their own success. It is critical that we as service-learning practitioners adapt the resources that we do have to create a service framework that supports all citizens, including youth.

Laura Rog is the Director of Training and Technical Assistance with generationOn and a featured blogger.

Posted in AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, Service Learning | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Developing a Volunteer Orientation Program

Posted on March 18, 2013 by VM Tech

by Megan Welch

Last week, I wrote about the importance of developing a volunteer orientation to enhance the experience of your volunteers and create well-rounded volunteer management program for your organization. This week, I will explore the steps towards creating a custom volunteer orientation, and ask you to reflect the orientation needs of your own volunteer program.

How should you go about developing an orientation program for your volunteers? It’s actually quite simple. Start by conducting a needs assessment and examining what your volunteers currently do to complete the intake process. Keep in mind that orientation is one piece of the puzzle, and is intended to go hand in hand with whatever program or position specific training new volunteers need to complete in order to be fully prepared to start their service.

Consider your ideal vision for a volunteer orientation. You’ll need to determine the logistics of volunteer orientation before your content starts to take shape. Start by asking yourself:

- Who will provide orientation for volunteers?
- Should volunteers be oriented individually or in a group?
- Is additional, position specific training necessary? Is it already in place?
- How long should be spent on orientation? What is the time commitment for volunteers?
- How can you make orientation an interactive experience for volunteers? What do they want to learn about?
- What technology is available to you? Try to think outside the box!

Next, you’ll need to consider what you want to accomplish through volunteer orientation. Think about where your volunteers are coming from and what kind of service they will provide.

- Are your volunteers individuals who serve on a regular, ongoing basis?
- Do you have occasional or one-time volunteers?
- Do you use volunteers for special events/ projects or in large groups (such as school, religious or corporate)?
- What kinds of things do your volunteers do? Do they complete manual labor or administrative tasks?
- Do any of your volunteers participate in direct service activities, where they see clients or have access to confidential information?
- What risks are associated with the service your volunteers perform? How can you prepare them for these risks?
- Think about scenarios that you can include and discuss with volunteers to prepare them for real situations that they may encounter during their service.

You also need to consider the orientation and training topics that should be covered with your volunteers. Look to your staff training or orientation material and employee handbook for inspiration. What kind of information is covered for staff? How detailed is this information?

As a part of this process, you will want to become knowledgeable about volunteer training for specific positions, and determine exactly where to draw the line between orientation and training material for your program. For orientation, you’ll want to provide an overview of general, agency or organizational information as well as specific volunteer participation guidelines, and policies and procedures.

Consider including: history, mission statement, organizational structure, information about programs or services, client base, funding sources etc.

Participation guidelines for volunteers should include: supervision, time reporting, commitment, evaluation, reasons for ending service, training requirements, drug-free policy, harassment prevention, safety scenarios etc.

Direct service volunteers may require information on: confidentiality, mandatory reporting, blood-borne pathogens, boundaries, cultural dynamics, driving regulations etc.

Developing a volunteer orientation model for your program is relatively simple, once you get to know your volunteer base and the work that they do. You can present the orientation as an info session, PowerPoint or Prezi presentation or another creative format. You will quickly learn what works best for your program!

Volunteers who receive an orientation upon beginning their service take pride in their service and are more invested in the mission of the organization. They will feel confident in their ability to make a difference and are likely to spread the word about their experience. A volunteer orientation program is a small investment in developing a standardized volunteer experience, which will in turn strengthen your program’s service delivery.

Megan Welch is a native of Fairfield, CT and graduated from Fordham University with a degree in History and Theology in 2011. After Fordham, Megan spent a year serving with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in San Jose, CA. Megan is currently serving as the AmeriCorps VISTA member at Catholic Charities Maine (CCM), based in Portland, with the Maine VISTA Project. At CCM, Megan’s focus is on capacity building and volunteer engagement.

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One Big Family

Posted on March 15, 2013 by VM Tech

by Nicole Evers

As a member serving under the Goodwill AmeriCorps branch through the Multilingual Leadership Corps, I was offered the wonderful position at the Tree Street Youth Center in Lewiston, ME. Even as a Maine resident myself, Lewiston was actually quite an unfamiliar location for me. Living close to the Portland area, my ideas of the city were quite ignorant. I simply saw it as the other major Maine city but inland with a large refugee population. After serving here for six months, I have now learned what I was missing all those years. Lewiston is a vibrant and historical place with an authentic culture and close-knit community. Located in the heart of the downtown residential community of Lewiston, my host site, Tree Street, stands lovingly with open arms.

Nicole Evers at Tree Street Youth

Immediate comfort rushed over me when I arrived for my first day on the job at Tree Street. Bright colorful walls accompanied by kids’ paintings of happy words and images fill the interior. Kids piled in the door calling out one of the co-founder’s names in excitement while giving hugs and exchanging smiling conversations in different languages with one another. Some flocked to the pool table, while others started to grab well-loved volunteers to help them in the homework rooms. Amidst the explosion of positive energy, two StreetLeaders sat down on the couch next to me and began chitchatting as if we were old friends. It hit me pretty quickly that this was the place for me.

With a large population of Somali refugees in the community, Tree Street serves a sizeable amount of English Language Learners (ELL). While one aspect of the center is the integration of these ELL students to American culture, our main goal is to build close relationships in order to merge any and all cultures and identities together at a secure place. This idea ultimately transcends outside of the center to these kids’ neighborhoods and beyond. Tree Street’s mission statement is to support the youth of Lewiston-Auburn through academics, the arts and athletics while providing a safe space that encourages healthy physical, social, emotional, and academic development while building unity across lines of difference. Tree Street succeeds in its mission statement with flying colors.

The StreetLeader Program is just one of the amazing programs that Tree Street has developed to help enforce its operation. The program is a year-round job-training opportunity for the local high school students who have established academic and leadership potential. They are a significant component to Tree Street as they serve as mentors and role models to the younger students. My role at the center is to coordinate these prospective and talented high school students and to provide them with mentorship support as well as trainings, outings, and staff meetings. These events have included leadership development skills, conflict-resolution solutions, and a K’naan concert and ice-skating.

Many people make the magic at Tree Street possible, from parent volunteers to board members, to partnered community organizations, to local government officials; however, at the heart of it all – the ones that are there through thick and thin, are the two tremendous, award-winning co-founders who have already, at such a young age, built an everlasting legacy. The first idea Tree Street’s co-founders planted in my head was to think of the center as an extended family. This definitely holds true for both the people who work there and the kids that it serves. This family also includes the continuing influx of passionate volunteers. Their overwhelming unselfishness and time commitment is truly inspiring and admirable. Our volunteers bring stability, friendship, guidance, and various unique skills for the kids. While a major component of the volunteers work is homework help, they offer so much more and always exceed expectations. I can imagine to coordinate all of our thoughtful volunteers is no easy feat since we have so many that want to be involved! This management is strategically and exceptionally done by my fellow AmeriCorps team member who commits her time not only to the care of our volunteers but also to all the kids.

I would have never been able to be a part of this beautiful mission and family without the support and trainings offered by AmeriCorps. The Multilingual Leadership Corps has built up my problem-solving, cross-cultural identity thinking, and community development skills, while also helping me to build my knowledge of non-profits. Only being halfway completed, my AmeriCorps term has already created the building blocks of professional development and abilities for a future career in public service.

Nicole Evers is serving with Goodwill’s Multilingual Leadership Corps, an AmeriCorps program funded by the Corporation for National and Community Service through the Maine Commission for Community Service. Nicole is blogging in celebration of AmeriCorps Week 2013.

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Collaboration to Meet Needs

Posted on March 14, 2013 by VM Tech

by Kemper Tell

Kemper Tell

The need for safe and quality housing has been discovered as a key to academic success for all children. This is especially true for new immigrants to the United States who face more barriers in becoming productive in society. Some barriers are learning a new language, facing a new culture, and activities as simple as knowing how to shop in a grocery store. As a State and National AmeriCorps member, I am serving with the affordable housing non-profit Avesta Housing in Portland that is addressing both of these needs by combining quality housing and academic resources.

At Avesta, I am creating and executing an after-school program at several properties throughout Portland and Westbrook. I am providing homework assistance and constructive play for residents, many of whom are immigrants brought to the United States because of various conflicts around the world. The accessibility to academic assistance located where students live allows for many children to participate in out-of-school-time activities they would not be able to access if it was located elsewhere. It also creates a greater sense of community for the residents when they have a common meeting space every week they know they can come to for homework help and play.

As humans we all require basic needs to be met in order to be successful and one is shelter. Avesta Housing is working to meet that need, and in partnership with AmeriCorps, working to create a successful academic environment for its residents.

Kemper Tell is serving with Goodwill’s Multilingual Leadership Corps, an AmeriCorps program funded by the Corporation for National and Community Service through the Maine Commission for Community Service. She is blogging in celebration of 2013 AmeriCorps Week.

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It Takes a Village: “Making It Happen” for Multilingual Students

Posted on March 12, 2013 by VM Tech

by Briana Markoff

Early on in my time with the Multilingual Leadership Corps, I was invited by some of the students in my program, the Casco Bay High branch of Make It Happen, to attend a “Cafe Night,” put on by seniors in a creative writing class. One student, a senior from Rwanda named Grace, read a poem she had written about her experience with the English language. The poem was called “The Words in English,” and in it, Grace described English as “my gremlin.” Already fluent in Kinyarwanda, Swahili, and French, having to attend high school in a fourth, unfamiliar language felt to Grace like a nearly insurmountable obstacle. “The gremlin speaks English,” she writes. “The language that tells me / I will never be able to do it.”

Through my AmeriCorps position with Make It Happen, I am lucky enough to spend each day telling students like Grace that they will be able to do it. My job is multifaceted — I provide school skills support for English Language Learners during supported study; I meet with students one-on-one to discuss their academics, community engagement, and aspirations; and I help out with college essays and applications. But my favorite part of the day comes at the end, at the After Ours study center, where I match volunteers with small groups of students to provide academic coaching, mentoring, and most importantly, a strong relationship that can help students feel encouraged and empowered to achieve.

It is at After Ours where we really make it happen — final papers get polished, plans for meeting standards get made, and college applications get submitted. Every day, I am amazed by what a small team of dedicated volunteers can accomplish in just a few hours. Whether it’s helping a frustrated student work through a difficult problem, providing positive feedback and constructive suggestions, modeling patience and focus, or even just sitting by and saying, you can get this done, you can get through this paper and this class and this semester and this year — our volunteers have a near endless capacity to help our students understand that they will be able to do it.

Over the course of this year at Casco Bay High School, I have had the privilege of witnessing enormous growth in my students. Never have I understood better the community effort required to provide a real education for a student, especially students who face significant barriers, such as learning English. The combined efforts of dedicated teachers, enthusiastic volunteers, and above all, the students themselves, can result in incredible academic progress and personal growth — and when that happens, it’s wonderful to watch and be a part of. For this reason, my experience with Casco Bay has convinced me that I want to teach. I am currently applying to become certified in high school English and ESOL. I want to teach English in order to transform English from an obstacle into a tool — one tool among many that our multilingual students can use to learn, grow, achieve, and give back. At the end of her poem, Grace writes, “I will fight this battle. / I will conquer … I will protect my precious dream.” I look forward to a future of supporting students like Grace in their struggle, and helping them protect their precious dreams.

Briana Markoff is currently serving her second term with Goodwill AmeriCorps through the Multilingual Leadership Corps at Casco Bay High School. The Multilingual Leadership Corps places members in Maine schools, housing organizations, and educational nonprofits, serving K-12 English Language Learners (ELL). Placement sites are concentrated in the areas of greater Portland and Lewiston/Auburn. This program increases academic engagement among English Language Learners through: 1) School Skills Support, 2) Mentoring, 3) Aspirations, and 4) Community Engagement programs. Participating ELL students benefit from a myriad of intermingled services within their community, in school, and out of school. Briana is blogging in celebration of AmeriCorps Week 2013.

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