Making a BIG Difference - the AmeriCorps way!

Meadow View Team Report - Christa Fox, AmeriCorps Team Leader

This year for Make a Difference Day, the CalSERVES Meadow View team  partnered with the Volunteer Center of Sonoma County and produced over 50 volunteers to beautify the campus of Helen Lehman Elementary. The projects at hand included organizing the school’s library, repainting lines, numbers and hopscotch squares on the black top, and, the most daunting of tasks, a complete overhaul of the garden!

Amongst the free bagels and coffee, we were greeted in the morning by Helen Lehman’s principal, Beverly Jones. After the initial introduction, our large group dispersed into three smaller groups and started on our projects. It was a beautiful day to be outside painting and gardening!

The amount of student and parent volunteers was very impressive! Entire families arrived with their own tools and went straight to work. Many hands were engrossed in the garden, as it required the most attention. The Meadow View team helped to pull weeds, organize the tool shed, and lay cardboard, compost and mulch. Needless to say, there was a lot of shoveling involved!

The painting committee revamped the entire blacktop to appear brand new! Paint was reapplied on benches, hopscotch squares, basketball hoop backboards, perimeter lines, etc. Once again, the blacktop has been restored to a wonderful place for students to play.

The overall atmosphere at Helen Lehman was incredibly positive! Thank you so much to all who came out to lend a hand!

RL Stevens Team Report - Richelle Andre, AmeriCorps VIP Fellow

On Saturday, October 22nd, the R.L. Stevens CalSERVES staff and a handful of fantastic volunteers teamed up for Make a Difference Day. During the course of the morning, we were able to put bark mulch over many of the bare-dirt areas around the school, as well as on the margins of the playground. This bark mulch helps keep weeds down and make the school look great!

We were also able to clean out the school’s garden, which was full of truckloads of old weeds as well as garbage. Everyone worked really hard and had a great attitude the whole time. Thank you to everyone who came out!

Wright Charter Team Report - Stacey  Krywaruczenko, AmeriCorps Team Leader

This past Saturday, I joined the fabulous team at Wright Charter as we picked up trash and pulled weeds at Cook Middle School. These are both things that I have done numerous times at different locations, but there is just something very special about completing these tasks with people that I see everyday, with whom I know that I am already making a difference.

I mostly picked up trash around the school and conversed with my team members, one in particular that I didn’t even know very well, but through this experience I was able to get to know her at a different level. We had some good laughs, not just from our conversations, but also by some of the strange things that we found all throughout Cook. While doing all of these things, there were also members of the community who were practicing their favorite sport, or watching a soccer game.

Seeing the community interact in that manner allowed me to feel a sense of accomplishment. Through our actions of beautifying Cook Middle School, it is now a place where not only just the students can enjoy themselves, but the community can as well.

Making a Difference at Taylor Mountain

Richelle Andre, AmeriCorps VIP Fellow at Taylor Mountain Elementary

On Saturday, October 22nd the Taylor Mountain team, aided by a handful of caring and passionate volunteers, helped start the Taylor Mountain school garden - completely from scratch! Lumber and supplies were generously donated by Mission Ace Hardware, Bennet Valley Ace, and Bergess Lumber. Using these materials, along with tools borrowed from the Santa Rosa Tool Library, we were able to construct five pristine 4x8 redwood planter boxes that now have a home behind Taylor Mountain Elementary.

School staff also aided the project, and with their help we were able to scrub the outside stage area, clean up trash, and make a beautiful mural. Family members of CalSERVES After School students were also crucial team members who shared their construction knowledge and precious Saturday mornings to help us beautify the school campus.

It was a terrific event, with CalSERVES tudents and mentors helping create boxes, fill them with dirt, weed, and make a difference!

Making a Difference, even on a Saturday!

Jamie Hennick, AmeriCorps Member at Wright Charter

Typically for CalSERVES mentors, the weekends are reserved for resting from the previous week and recharging for the week ahead. This Saturday, October 22nd, is different. Make a Difference Day, the first CalSERVES service day of the school year, provides mentors with an opportunity to extend their service into their weekend, and for good cause. Mentors will be helping at four different elementary schools on campus beautification projects, with activities ranging from weeding to garden work and trash pick-up to painting. The ultimate goal is to improve the environment for our students by improving the physical conditions of the school campuses.

 CalSERVES is partnering with The Volunteer Center for this service day. The Volunteer Center of Sonoma County is an organization that promotes community service and volunteerism by sponsoring service events in our local towns. CalSERVES mentors will participate in this event at one of four designated CalSERVES sites, but there are projects at nine different schools that community volunteers are invited attend. CalSERVES encourages you to take a few hours out of your Saturday to join us in making a difference. All supplies will be provided at the site in addition to a small snack. Make a Difference Day will take place at the following elementary schools: R.L. Stevens, Taylor Mountain, Helen Lehman and Cook. Projects will also take place at Biella, Jack London and Luther Burbank in Santa Rosa, and Cinnabar School in Petaluma and Sonoma Valley High School in Sonoma.

Again, volunteers will be working from 9am-12pm on this Saturday, October 22nd and we would love to see you there!

If you have any questions about the project, feel free to contact Rachael McDavid with The Volunteer Center at 707-573-3399 or Katie McCormick of CalSERVES at 707-320-8542.

Go and Tutor!

Jerry Noviello, CalSERVES Program Coordinator

Tutoring has begun! This is my favorite time of the year!! I can feel the energy from the excitement and curiousness and nervousness that’s mixing in the air at all of our school sites. It is a wonderful time when AmeriCorps Mentors are introduced to the student who they will tutor for the entire school year. Pretty soon all of the initial assessments will be complete and the sound of students reading from books or curriculum will fill the classrooms.

Students selected for our literacy-tutoring program all need some additional help to learn must-needed reading skills. AmeriCorps members use our thorough assessments to develop in depth lessons that target the specific needs for each of their students. It is a personalized instruction program that every year proves to yield stellar results.

As I am writing this blog posting, our AmeriCorps members are finding the instruction reading levels for each of their tutees. We then are able to choose books that students read. These books are at a difficulty level which is appropriate for each student to read along with the support of caring adult. Students who previously may not have been confident readers discover that they can be successful readers and that reading is fun!

To all of our AmeriCorps Mentors; I wish you high hopes for a great year ahead. Your dedication to service and to helping the community is an inspiration to us all.

Thoughts from Meadow View as Programs Start

August 31, 2011
We have just finished organizing the bookshelves for the hundredth time, or so it feels. The room is starting to come together and look like a usable place. The energy level is rising as we come closer to getting students with us. It’s exciting and we are all eager to put these long hours of training to good use. We are also coming together as a group and as team members. 

There is a sense of helping and caring. I genuinely love the feel of us all working together. I am enjoying my experience and the people here at Meadow View work very well together. Our group here does not get bogged down with drama. We have fun and we enjoy our time together. But we work hard when we need to, and we keep each other grounded.
-Olivia Jessen, Full Time Mentor, 2nd year

September 8, 2011
My team here at Meadow View has an inspiring amount of energy and enthusiasm for the programs and students. I am already impressed with each mentor and their unique contributions to the team. We have returners who were once quiet and reserved speaking out and being a mentor to their newer peers. We have first year mentors contributing creative new ideas, specifically with our kindergarten students, new to the After School Program this year. 

The mentors planned and hosted a successful teacher meet-and-greet lunchtime event, which included a delicious potluck, mentor photo and stats board, and conversation starting fun facts about our mentors and team. I am also grateful for my Leadership Team that takes charge in supporting me and our efforts. They make my job just a little bit easier but a whole lot more enjoyable. 

Cheers to a strong beginning to another great year of youth services at Meadow View Elementary!
-Kimberly Copperberg, Site Supervisor

Leadership Students are Monkeying Around

Kristen Mowers, Supervising Teacher, Taylor Mountain Elementary

The students who were selected to join the CalSERVES leadership program at Taylor Mountain were rewarded with a field trip to Expedition Island for their work. Students had to attend everyday, bring a great attitude, and help make plans for the year. They helped train their mentors (teaching them new games and providing opportunities to practice the youth development skills they were learning).

Students got to Zipline,

Trek across a suspension bridge,

Climb rick walls,

and be active the entire time we were there. The afternoon was full of smiles and laughter. Students helped each other and took on challenges that seemed overwhelming.

“I think a grew some muscles in there!” – Ruben, 6th grade

AmeriCorps Recruitment Update

Jerry Noviello, Program Coordinator, CalSERVES

CalSERVES Recruitment is complete!! It has been quite the process to hire all of our new part-time AmeriCorps members, but we are finally at capacity, with 51 Full-time AmeriCorps members and 66 Half-time Members!

Our AmeriCorps Team Leaders did an excellent job last spring to help us recruit most of our team from Sonoma State University and Santa Rosa Junior College. Throughout the summer, CalSERVES staff have been hard at work to recruit the remaining positions. Many thanks to everyone who was involved in the recruitment process. We couldn’t have done it without you!

If you are interested in serving with our programs next year, please contact us! We are currently recruiting volunteers for our six schools in Santa Rosa. Volunteering is a great way to gain valuable experience in afterschool programs as well as build a relationship with our organization. I highly recommend volunteering if you are thinking about applying for an AmeriCorps position next year! You can reach us at 1-888-560-7378, or americorps@calserves.org.