AmeriCorps Members Wrap Up Summer of Service to DMPS
So close to the start of a new year the emphasis is understandably on preparation. But summer’s waning days are also the occasion for closure in some areas.
Friday afternoon the district’s summer contingent of AmeriCorps volunteers gathered to tie up administrative loose ends, compare notes, share some cake and, in many cases, recommit.
AmeriCorps service suits people across a wide spectrum from those segueing between college and careers to folks looking for a bridge to cross from their career to full retirement. The group that assembled Friday was a good cross-section of the 60 corps members who were deployed at 20 DMPS schools during the summer, according to Eric Whitney, the district’s AmeriCorps Coordinator.
Gayle Canada worked as a special education teacher for more than 20 years prior to her AmeriCorps stint this past year at Merrill Middle School which she described as “amazing.” Besides the bonds she formed with the teachers and students she served, “I feel so much more connected to this community,” she said, thanks to contacts she made as a liaison between Merrill and organizations that participated in the service learning prong of the school’s IB curriculum. She’s reenlisted for another year.
Andy Mickunas was a literacy and math tutor last year at the Downtown School before moving to Callanan Middle School over the summer where he staffed camps made possible by a 21st Century Community Learning Center grant. He’s working on a master’s degree in education at Drake University and his AmeriCorps hitch has only confirmed his ambitions to teach. “Plus it’s a great foot in the door,” with DMPS he noted.
Colleagues like Ashley Frederick, Sydney Williams, and Lyndsey Tremel echoed Mickunas’s impressions. Each of them signed up with at least a hunch about teaching or working with kids in some capacity that would also be an opportunity for community service. And each is now more certain of the direction they’re headed.
“At Meredith (Middle School) we helped 7th graders plant 18 trees on the campus last spring,” Frederick said. “And that project was the perfect example of doing something that you’ll be able to see evidence of for many years to come.” AmeriCorps service is both “teaching and learning what it’s like to give back to your own community.”
Laura Stevenson is a student at Simpson College who was assigned to Park Avenue Elementary. She has a big sister who’s a teacher and suggested AmeriCorps to her as a way to do some practical research about the field. And now she aspires to teach elementary school, too.
AmeriCorps isn’t technically an all-volunteer gig. Stipends are paid plus the bonus of an award at the end of a term of service that can either be used to pay for additional education or towards retirement of previously incurred student loan debt. Student loans, by the way, are deferred during AmeriCorps service, just as they are while borrowers are still in school.
Whitney says it’s not too late to enlist for the 2014-15 school year. If you’re ready to step forward or even just curious to know more, click here.
But the relationships, the stipends, the education bonuses, the doors your feet get inside, the segues and the bridges aren’t the only perks of AmeriCorps service. In addition to all of that there are t-shirts, certificates and cake to be had as parting gifts.
So, if you think you’re citizen enough maybe you’d like to step inside.
