Local Veterans Serving in AmeriCorps Honored for Military Service

By: Caitlin Burchill, WABI-TV

Folks who have served our country were honored in Bangor Monday for their continued service to the community.

Local AmeriCorps members who are also veterans were thanked at a ceremony at UMaine-Augusta in Bangor.

“There is a focus nationally for AmeriCorps to thank and appreciate all of the work that all of the veterans do and in our case we have veterans serving here who are helping other veterans,” said AmeriCorps Coordinator Jason Aylmer.

Like Stephen Casey from Hampden, who is a Veteran Outreach Volunteer at the college.

“It means a lot to me. It’s a lot about brotherhood and sisterhood. Being a veteran myself, I served six years in the United States Army, being able to help these veterans out on campus and get them the resources they need is very meaningful,” said Casey.

AmeriCorps members pledge a year of service.

“When you swear in in AmeriCorps, it’s similar to swear in for the United States services,” said Casey.

“For most folks, the unifying theme is helping others. We like to identify that, amplify that, and make that a huge part of their service,” said Aylmer.

Jason Foley and Karen Goldsmith, both of Bangor, were also honored.

Watch the full story here. 

Join us as we recognize veterans who have continued their service to America as AmeriCorps members and Senior Corps volunteers, as well as national service participants supporting veterans and military families.

Keep reading

How My Year of Service Matured My Head and My Heart 

By: Mi’Jan Celie Tho-Biaz via The Huffington Post 

As a recently separated mother of two young children, I became an AmeriCorps HealthCorps member at the age of 32, based on my interest to understand different vantage points of community work. I embarked on my service year with a strong foundation as a teacher with a practice in English Language Learner education and curriculum design, as well as through my graduate degree studies in multicultural education. During my early 30’s, I most wanted to understand different ways that low-income women and families were experiencing marginalization, and I wanted to continue expanding my path of service from a deep listening approach, coupled with direct action.

During my AmeriCorps HealthCorps service year I managed a non-profit clinic for uninsured, low-income and homeless women, and I also served as a health worker with the same population. With each passing month, my head and heart matured while I gained on-the-ground experience. From this new place of empathy, connection and understanding, I began working to frame my academic research path. I witnessed the positive outcomes of empowered, community-based education for women, as well as the negative, troubling impacts poverty has on women, emotionally and physically.

It would be an understatement to say that my year of service was deeply transformative and challenging, occurring at a pivotal moment in my personal, professional and academic life. Consequently, once I completed graduate school I leaped at the chance to become an Executive Director of an educational arts organization in Santa Fe. The nonprofit I led had an integrated AmeriCorps component in its core programming, and I was presented with an opening to see the benefits and challenges of full-time, stipended service for individuals and communities through the new lens of a leader.

On the one hand, I could clearly see the ways in which a year of paid service provides a pathway for young adults to become creative practitioners and teaching artists in underserved and under resourced communities and classrooms, while concurrently building a foundation of civic engagement through the community-based organizations with which they worked and partnered. Unfortunately, I also witnessed the financial obstacles this pathway of service posed for low-income members who wanted to serve in their own communities, but needed additional financial support in order to participate in full-time service year programs.

So I began to ask the question daily, “What already exists to increase the support and access of creative citizenry and civic engagement programs for young adults in Santa Fe?” I started investigating the higher education institutions, economic development initiatives, and cultural community-based organizations that would be willing to commit to focusing a portion of their existing programming to young adults who want to pursue a year of paid service in community arts. What emerged from this basic line of inquiry into the problems that Santa Fe faces in attracting, engaging, and retaining young adults is a simple, meaningful approach that can provide much needed systems level change.

My interest in joining the Franklin Project as an Ambassador derived from my own background in service, coupled with my desire to launch a Community Art Service Year initiative in Santa Fe, New Mexico that joins the existing national movement in which “a year of full-time national service – a service year – is a cultural expectation, a common opportunity, and a civic rite of passage for every young American.” Of particular interest and concern are the young adults in Santa Fe from diverse communities who are disconnected from formal educational programs and professional creative path-building work.

As a seasoned creative professional, I am overwhelming grateful to call Santa Fe home. Yet, it is my sincerest desire that The City Different begins to grow and expand into a place for creative community members of all ages; a place that actively supports and mentors young adults as equally valued members of our city who will collaboratively design and build our city and state capitol to be inclusive of this next generation’s creative practitioners, educators, leaders and citizens.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post and the Aspen Institute’s Franklin Project in conjunction with Giving Tuesday. The series, which will run for the month of November, features pieces written by Franklin Project Ambassadors, local leaders who are working with community stakeholders in 25 states toward the Franklin Project’s vision of making a year of national service – a service year – a cultural expectation, common opportunity, and civic rite of passage for every young American.

When I imagine justice the first thing I see is racial equity 

By: Milagro Jones; Public Allies 

Milagro Jones, an AmeriCorps member with Public Allies Milwaukee, is serving the homeless community with Project Homeless Connect — the same organization that helped him when he was a homeless and “invisible” youth in the city. Below are Milagro’s reflections — in his own words — on what it means to #ImagineJustice.

Labels such as race and gender will not define us, nor be used to measure our ability, judge our value, or calculate our worth. None of these labels define us as what we are, which is human.

The color of my skin will not predispose what geographical location I live in, nor which economic class I will be relegated to.

I imagine a world where the resources of the earth are no longer pillaged and raped, but instead conserved for the sake of harmony between the earth and its inhabitants. I imagine a world united and no longer fractured by wars of greed and envy.

I imagine a day when honesty is appreciated instead of silenced.

In a just and equitable society every little boy and girl can come home to love, food, water, clean clothes, hygiene products, and security. Everyone in America should have a safe place to live. Too many children come home to violence, alcohol, drugs, hunger, neglect, molestation, or rape. The children that runaway are often the victim of worse experiences on the streets than what they experienced within the walls of their broken homes.

It is only now that I am an adult and have found AmeriCorps that for the first time in my life I have a safe stable environment to call home. I don’t want my daughter to have to deal with the housing insecurity and fear of coming home that I had to face as an obstacle to my achievement.

In a just and equitable society the mental and physical health of the people is comprehensively taken care of. Drugs are good for those that need them as treatment or medicine. However in a just and equitable society a child shouldn’t have to come home to see drugs and alcohol being abused in the home by the family.

Yet, when I try to picture a just and equitable society, my imagination is pierced with the sorrow of reality. Mankind is unjust and the quality of life one receives here on earth is unequal. The most one can do is accept his or her lot, enjoy his or her toil, seek wisdom, and in moderation enjoy his or her own self indulgences.

I am blessed to have the opportunity to be a Public Ally and learn how to apply the values of the program in my community, city, and world. I truly will make a difference in the lives of others and continue to better my own life.

However I have no illusions as to the state of the world we are living in, and I will not waste time with any idealistic visions of reality. The only thing that is changing is the seasons and once you figure out the pattern you realize that those, too, stay the same.

Before we can imagine the justice and equality of the future we must address the injustices and inequalities of the present.

— Milagro Jones

Story via Public Allies