Statement of Service

This is a statement of service I wrote and submitted to a document through my host organization.  They compiled stories and statements from AmeriCorps across the state to share with our country's decision makers.

I serve because I‘ve been taught to live my mission. I‘m from a generation that has been endlessly encouraged to seek out opportunities and follow our dreams. I‘m from a family that taught me to exist and act with a purpose. I‘m from a faith that calls me to walk beside my fellow man to serve them as an equal.

I didn‘t join AmeriCorps as a last minute, fail safe job because I had nowhere else to turn. Instead of  diving headfirst into a world of policy and effectual change through social media (the focus of my degree), I examined my motivations and took an essential vow of poverty, stepping into a year long service term as an AmeriCorps VISTA. I understood then a tiny portion of what I am sure of now: I cannot ―be the change I want to see in the world‖ unless I understand what that change looks like, and how I evaluative through experience that it needs to happen. So  often I am prone to immediate and swift action on an issue that I think needs changing, without fully understanding the repercussions. I didn‘t think, as a bright-eyed 22 year old, I had the knowledge to do a job well if I didn‘t have valuable personal experience.

Call me crazy, but I honestly think I can make a difference, a lasting impact in my country. Serving in AmeriCorps is what I see as an investment in an area that can not only have a huge impact on my own future, but essentially an impact for the country as a whole. I can‘t imagine being a college graduate, filled with a drive to influence (and the true talents and skills to make that lasting influence), without a position or an outlet to cultivate that change, like I am afforded in AmeriCorps. I‘ve learned that appropriating money to different programs and trying to add a little here, move a little there does not work when trying to help the impoverished. I‘ve learned that to get my fellow Americans back on their feet, they have to want and believe they can get back up. I‘ve heard previously homeless people say ―my biggest obstacle was my self-worth. As an AmeriCorps, as someone also living in poverty with a tendency for ardent action, I want to step alongside that person to help them discover their self-worth. Programs that invest in people, like AmeriCorps, are what I see as making an enduring change for the better in our country, toward a more sustainable and motivated population.

When I attended AmeriCorps training, the most impactful time was the opportunity to sit in a circle and talk about our experience with poverty. Some people had very real and honest experience in generational poverty, and I was blown away by their presence at PSO; their effort to simultaneously emerge from the cycle and their desire to help others do the same. Others had no experience with poverty, even lacking experience discussing the issue in trying to discover the varied causes of poverty. These fellow VISTAs expressed they didn‘t realize poverty wasn‘t in just Africa, but it was an invisible problem in their backyard. It was a curious theme, the invisibility. Money, class, and even the state of being in poverty can be both very visible and very hidden at the same time. I was amazed to learn that everyone saying they grew up in poverty never knew they were poor. Their parents hid it from them, and they
assured the group they would do the same for their kids. All want a better life for their children, yet all are hiding the facts. I wonder what would happen if these parents had honest conversations about their financial situation. Would the kids be able to grasp it and us it as a catalyst to dream big and ―get out‖ of the cycle? Or would it continue to be a ―this is how it is situation, with acceptance in early childhood and complacency? There‘s always these what if questions and I always want to take action on them to see if changing the current can change the future. I do have to remember this doesn‘t stay a discussion, a theory, or a simple curious question. It‘s a life, and it‘s not even my own.