Views from VISTAs: Updates from March 2020

Photo by Pragyan Bezbaruah, courtesy of Picnoi.

AmeriCorps’ Volunteers In Service To America (VISTA) work to alleviate poverty by providing indirect service to their communities. Our afterschool VISTAs and the work they do are essential to the expansion of afterschool access for the children who need it most, especially in the fields of STEM, child nutrition, youth mentoring, and program sustainability.

Here’s what a few of our VISTAs have been up to during the past few weeks in response to COVID-19.

Gathering resources for educators, programs and parents

Dan Ristau, a STEM Ecosystem VISTA at STEMSTL, worked with his site to create a quick and easily accessible list of resources for teachers and parents to continue virtual learning at home.  They gathered resources with input from 25 partners and shared the resource document through their newsletter and Twitter account. This resource document is a pinned post on STEMSTL’s Twitter account with more than 1,300 views and more than 100 clicks.  In addition, the newsletter went out to more than 200 individuals with a 45 percent open rate. 

Jared Gould, an Afterschool STEM Expansion VISTA at the Alaska Afterschool Network, also gathered resources for families and afterschool program providers, which can be found here. These resources included information on COVID-19 symptoms and how it can be spread, combating stigma, guidance for afterschool programs, and how to talk to children about COVID-19. Jared received feedback from partners that these were helpful resources in this time of instability.

Collecting information to share about afterschool meals

Colleen Dorfler, an Afterschool and Summer Meals VISTA at OregonASK, has been gathering information about afterschool and summer meal access during this time. She attended the Multnomah County Summer Meals Workgroup Meeting, which is the largest county in Oregon. The meeting took place as COVID-19 was getting increasingly more severe, shifting the focus of the meeting towards discussing next steps with afterschool meals programs. Colleen has also participated in webinars such as “Creating Food Access in a Pandemic” and “Serving Meals during COVID-19: Out-of-School Time Partners”, which gave Colleen valuable information that she and her site plan to share with the programs that they work with.

Supporting the development of a Youth Development Emergency Relief Fund

Angel Cancino, an Afterschool Sustainability VISTA with the Arizona Center for Afterschool Excellence (AzCASE), helped to develop his site’s Youth Development Emergency Relief Fund. AzCASE will participate in Arizona Gives Day on April 7, an annual day of virtual giving for Arizona nonprofits. Angel is planning a day of resource and information sharing to support his site’s fundraising efforts. All funds raised on his site’s behalf on this day will go towards the Youth Development Emergency Relief Fund.

“This fund was established by AzCASE to support out-of-school time programs across the state as they respond to the impact of COVID-19 within our community. One hundred percent of contributions to this fund will be distributed to programs in need,” Angel shared.

Inspiring efforts to alleviate poverty and expand access to afterschool – and its benefits – are happening every day. Join the mission! Learn more about the AmeriCorps afterschool VISTAs and job openings near you.