Andrew is a Volunteer Coordinator with Americorps VISTA, a national service program created in 1965 to fight poverty in America. Andrew’s main role is to encourage current college students to enroll as student-mentors in the program. If you’re looking for a rewarding career with a big sense of community, check out Andrew’s advice!
Transcript
>> My name's AJ Ortiz, I'm a volunteer coordinator for Millersville's Office of Experiential Learning and Career Management. It's a program through AmeriCorps, which is a government program. AmeriCorps has a bunch of different aspects to it. The program that I'm a part of is called, Vista, which stands for Volunteer in Service to America. It's a really great program, focused on reducing poverty in areas around the country. So, I got this job after graduating from Millersville this past spring and I work for ELCM, basically recruiting student volunteers here at Millersville to serve as after school mentors and tutors in the Lancaster city area. A busy day, towards the beginning of the semester, I had a lot of busy days. I was establishing relationships with my community partners and in Lancaster city. Whether it be the program directors of different after school programs I send volunteers to, so, I wanted to establish connections with them to establish the expectations for what our work would look like throu9ghout the semester. I spend a lot of time emailing different faculty around the campus, and different student groups to try to engage them, instead of classroom presentations with the different faculty here on campus. So, you know, a lot of time spent answering emails, which is pretty typical these days. And, a lot of time going to different classrooms and making presentations to groups of students, and basically engaging them and telling them about what it would look like to be a student, a student tutor, or a mentor, and what it's like working with kids. So, there's a lot of that and then, I spend a lot of time meeting with students who responded to my engagement. I would initially make contact with them through email or phone, then they would come to my office. And, that was probably my favorite part of the job, is just meeting with the students, getting to know them. Really establishing expectations for, like I said, what it's like to be a volunteer and then, kind of coordinating their schedules and figuring out what was going to be the best fit for them. So, right now, as the semester's winding down, things aren't quite as busy, but I'm really just trying to plan for next semester and how I can increase member recruitment. How I can make it a better experience for volunteers, and things like that.
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