Establishing Purposeful Community Service through CSU Monterey Bay

By Steven Goings VIP Leader at CSU Monterey Bay

    The Service Learning Institute is the crown jewel of California State University Monterey Bay.   CSUMB is one of four public universities with Service Learning as an academic requirement.  We also hold the distinction of being the most honored university in the country for community service; having twice won the President’s Award for Community Service in Higher Education. 

    At CSUMB, although Service Learners perform community service they are NOT volunteers; consequently there has been no comprehensive development of volunteer programs at CSUMB until they brought on their first AmeriCorps VIP Leader, yours truly, in 2010. 

VIP Leader Steven Goings with volunteers

    My charge was to do the recruiting, infrastructure capacity building and volunteer management expected of any VIP, and to extend the values associated with the SLI, like social justice and compassion, into the co-curricular areas of our university like Athletics, Greek Life, and Student Clubs.

    Indeed, the mission of the SLI is to foster and promote social justice by cultivating reciprocal partnerships.  But I soon realized that social justice was not the only motivation students had for volunteering.  In fact, some students just wanted to have an enjoyable experience!  So I came up with a way to combine service learning values with more individual motivations by initiating the Purposeful Service Opportunities (PSO) program. 

Steven Goings 

    PSO is a series of WebPages and resources on the SLI website that list volunteer opportunities as “purposeful service” opportunities.  Any student can sign up for any opportunity as a regular volunteer, and they have the opportunity to transform any volunteer activity into purposeful service by submitting a reflection on the social justice implications of their service or by explaining how their service relates to their own “purpose in life”.  These Purposeful Service resources not only  connect volunteers to organizations but also promote thinking about the relationship between social justice and their own volunteer experiences.

      Purposeful Service events that have been firmly established  here at CSUMB include widespread participation in Make a Difference Day, World AIDS Day, Cesar Chavez Day and the Pursuit Youth Expo. There are now annual Purposeful Service awards that recognize service across campus communities. 

    The ultimate goal is to provide both entry and advanced level purposeful service opportunities for our students; to create a cohesive, connected volunteer community that is no longer segregated in their individual silos; and to encourage interdepartmental collaboration on volunteer social justice projects that coordinates rather than duplicates efforts. 

    I think we are well on our way!

CSU Monterey Bay VIPs launch MLK Service Pledge Drive

 The largest MLK celebration near CSU Monterey Bay is the City of Seaside’s annual March and Celebration Program organized each year by the Monterey Peninsula Chapter of the National Pan-Hellenic Council.  The dilemma posed to our cohort of CSUMB VIP Fellows was how to include a service event that would not compete with this venerable local tradition.

The solution was the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 40 Days of Service Challenge.  We realized that year after year, the program had included exhortations from various key note speakers for community members to “get involved” – but this goal was left undefined and no concrete list of volunteer opportunities were provided.

So VIP Leader Steven Goings collaborated with the program’s principle coordinator, Alice Jordan, to design a volunteer service pledge drive that would kick off the MLK Day of Service and extend it through February’s Black History Month.   Our goal was to get 1000 hours of service pledged to selected non-profit organizations featured in the program as MLK Challenge Organizations with a focus on health and education.  Other prominent MLK Challenge Orgs other than our VIP sites included the Food Bank of Monterey County, the Salvation Army, African American HIV/AIDS Wellness, Kiwanis Club and the United Way Monterey County Volunteer Center.

When the day arrived, all our VIP Fellows were given volunteer roles to facilitate the set-up, smooth running, and break down of the event.  From working in the kitchen, to stuffing pledge cards in the program, to monitoring parking and of course picture taking, our Fellows were a real presence at the event.  We marched with both the AmeriCorps Week and MLK Day of Service banners and of course our VIP partner sites were among those official MLK Challenge Organizations that tabled at the event.

At the end of the program, VIP leader Steven Goings announced that the number of pledged hours collected came to a grand total of 2385!  Through our collaboration with the United Way, we also made community members aware of services they could take advantage of such as the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program and dialing “2-1-1” for a wide variety of health and human services.

Non-profits, VIP Fellows, program organizers and program goers alike all expressed appreciation and enthusiasm for this welcome new service element to the annual festivities and in fact we have heard from many organizations who vow to duplicate our efforts at local schools and other arenas.

All-in-all our VIP Fellows managed to put service closer to the center of our community’s celebrations of the legacy of Dr. King, raise the profile of both AmeriCorps and our local partner sites, serve in support of the march and program, and initiate a pledge drive that took minimal coordination with maximal impact.  We couldn’t be prouder of CSU Monterey Bay’s AmeriCorps VIPs.

Day in the Life Photo Contest Winner

Thank you to everyone who participated in our VIP AmeriCorps Week Photo Contest!  Over the next 3 days, we'll be announcing our photo contest winners.

Our first winner, for best "Day in the Life" shot, goes to...

 

James Laske, VIP Fellow at CSU Monterey Bay.  Congratulations!  This is a great photo of James working on a service learning project with a student - helping instill the AmeriCorps ethic of service into a new generation of volunteers!

Check out the blog again tomorrow and Wednesday to see our Volunteer in Action and Creative Photo winners!

What it's like to volunteer - from one of our volunteers!

Across the state, VIP Fellows will recruit over 15,000 volunteers.  That's a big number... but what does that mean?  What do they do?  What is it like?  Why would someone volunteer?  It's difficult to grasp the impact of volunteering from a number on its own.

To give some more context, here is a picture of what volunteering is like for Blake Caropino, a volunteer at the VIP partner site Boys & Girls Club of Monterey County.

"I have been volunteering at the Boys & Girls Club in Seaside, California for about a month now and thanks to my AmeriCorps VIP, Joseph Garcia, I was able to quickly start leading activities with the children at the club.  

It has allowed me to become a positive role model and rapidly become a new member of an already awesome community. In my short time at the club I have become an integral part in ensuring youth served are having a great experience in every activity I run with them. I am quickly learning that I am not only helping other members of the community grow but, that I am also gaining personal growth as well. This has been a fulfilling experience that I wish everyone would want to be a part of at some point in their life."

Thank you to Blake and all of our volunteers for sharing yourselves with our programs!   Your service makes a real difference in your community, and we hope that it makes a difference in your life as well.

Looking Back Over the Year - Make a Difference Day 2010

As the year starts to wrap up, we can see the incredible difference VIP Fellows have made across the state by mobilizing volunteers.  The following is a reflection from a volunteer at Make a Difference Day, one of the National Days of Service, at CSU Monterey Bay.  This piece appeared in the university's Illuminator publication in November.

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 What a Difference We Made...

     Actually, that’s incorrect.  I didn’t do anything except take pictures and watch.  But I feel lucky enough to have witnessed one of the largest collaborative gatherings of CSUMB students for a cause in a long time.  The occasion?  Make A Difference Day 2010.  As I watched Soledad St. in Salinas transform that day, I saw about 50 student volunteers from Out & About, W.H.A.A.T, Return of the Natives, Service Learning Institute, several fraternities & sororities and many other student organizations working hard together in a way I have never seen, at least at CSUMB.

                                 I may have not had a chance to get my hands dirty (even though in hindsight I wish I had!), but I did see that when people come together for a good cause, magic can happen.  When I arrived, it was dreary, the street was dirty and the overcast sky blotted out any light, but as the day unfolded and the sun emerged I discovered a healthy community thriving on good vibes and collaborative action.

     I saw artists painting raised garden beds with children.  I saw the students hand fresh fruit to the homeless.  I saw an entire block littered with garbage be transformed into a beautiful street full of life and activity.  I saw a band perform a free show for anyone to hear.  I saw donations being given to the non-profits organizing the event.  I saw a weedy and empty lot become clean and traversable again.  I saw smiles.  I hear laughter and music.  I smelled sunflowers and fresh vegetables being harvested.  I tasted fresh fruit given freely for all to share.  I felt amazed; the progress made in such a short time! 

     When people organize for humanitarian projects, wonderful things happen.  Having witnessed a beautiful coming together of many people from many different cultures, backgrounds, and ages, I can’t help but to wonder about what is still possible.  The CSUMB community may be mostly young and transitory, but Make A Difference Day 2010 gave me a good feeling about what we can accomplish if we really put our minds (and hands!) to it.  I wonder what we will set our sights upon next.

               I learned that if we truly commit, and we are willing to get our hands dirty… 

we really CAN make a difference.

by Joshua Reed-Doyle