Service Year Reflections

Kelly Baker
Science Club for Girls 
Cambridge, MA

As I reach the end of my half-year of service, I’m amazed by how much I’ve been able to accomplish.
From the beginning of my service, my host site Science Club for Girls has entrusted me with lots of responsibilities and opportunities to learn new skills.  I feel very lucky to have learned so much in such a short period of time—and that’s in no small part to the guidance of my supervisor and other colleagues at my host site.

During the past few months, I have worked with our Campus chapters at Northeastern University, Boston College, Harvard University, Brandeis University, and Wellesley College.  I've been able to support these young women as they run science clubs for girls and teens in the Greater Boston area and build the capacity of the program for Science Club for Girls.

Science Club for Girls Career Mentoring
program orientation training

I’ve enjoyed and gained so much from my half-year of service that I’ve elected to sign up for a second—this time full!— year of service with Science Club for Girls.  I know that the skill-sets I’ve honed and developed during my brief time here will serve me well in the new projects that will come my way in the next year.

The reason I was drawn to serving as an Americorps Ambassador of Mentoring is that I believe strongly in giving back to the communities I live and work in.  Previous to my service year as Campus Chapter Program Associate, I was working as a Research Associate at Harvard Business School.  Though this job was wonderful in many ways, I felt that I was missing out on the ability to more directly serve my community. Science Club for Girls has been the missing puzzle piece in my search to find meaningful work.  Working to empower young girls and women to pursue and excel in the sciences speaks to my feminist values as well as my belief in the benefits of mentoring.
I’m looking forward to serving another year with Science Club for Girls and continuing onto a career of service beyond that.

"I do what you do"

Allison Daniels
Catholic Charities - St. Peter's Teen Center 
Dorchester, MA

As my year of serving as an Ambassador of Mentoring winds down and I reflect on the defining moments of this season of my life, one interaction with a high school mentor stands out to me with particular profundity. The program I serve, Catholic Charities Teen Center at St. Peter’s, establishes and helps to maintain peer mentoring relationships, so we match high school mentors with middle school mentees. There is a distinct beauty and a unique challenge to working within a program comprised entirely of adolescents. One of the great joys as a mentor coordinator is being able to get to know our mentors so that I can encourage them and help guide them as they serve their middle school mentees.

One day one of my high school mentors came to me and said, “Hey Allison, I saw you the other day with a little girl, is she your daughter?” I told her that the girl she saw me with going to the neighborhood pizza shop with was not my daughter but my mentee and I shared with her a little bit about how I had come to meet her and what we do. The mentor said something along the lines of “oh, okay,” and went on with her day.

Several weeks later the same mentor came up to me and said, “Hey Allison, I do what you do.” I of course clarified this statement as it could have meant a myriad of things. She said, “you know mentor, I had her over for breakfast this Saturday.” Seeing as our peer mentoring program is a site-based program, meeting an hour a week under my supervision on-site at the teen center, I assumed she must have meant that she was involved with another program on the weekend. She corrected me and said that she had invited her peer mentoring mentee over for breakfast and then took her to the store. I was blown away by this incredibly kind gesture that she had extended to her mentee. I had never once suggested that the high school mentors try to get to know the family of their mentees and spend time with them on the weekends, even though our members are in a pretty tight knit community where everybody kind of already knows everybody. This mentor, on her own, chose to go above and beyond the parameters of our program and likely, in that one Saturday morning, made a greater impact in her mentee’s life than all of our on-site meetings combined. This type of extension beyond program parameters would have been problematic if I were matching adults with kids but since I have all kids, it was just a beautiful, organic sort of friendship that I merely helped initiate.
The mentor’s words, “I do what you do,” were so impactful to me. She didn’t say, “Hey Allison, you know, I was really inspired by that great training you gave us the other day, those communication best practices really came in handy.” She simply said, “I do what you do,” and that was precisely what she meant. For me it was deeply meaningful to hear her say this, it gave confirmation to my choice to live and work and play and mentor purposefully in the neighborhood where my mentors and mentees live. It is my intention to do life alongside the people I hope to love and serve, and in this brief exchange I got to see all of that converge with great meaning.

This interaction also reinforced for me the reason we mentor. We mentor because we know that modeling is an impactful way to learn. We all as humans very naturally learn by what we see others do. We can learn by what we hear in class lectures or trainings but we learn most by what we actually observe or experience. I had the distinct privilege of mentoring my high school mentor without even really knowing it. It is the best feeling to know that she has learned how important mentoring is at such a young age and I have a great confidence that she will continue to serve as a mentor as an adult because she has tasted and experienced the fulfillment and joy of investing in someone else’s life. It is a profound privilege to be a tiny part of helping to raise up a new generation of mentors and I am thankful for this experience as well as many others during my year of service thus far.

Living on the Compass

Alex Lenski

Child Care of the Berkshires, Inc.

North Adams, MA

Corps Members Alex Lenski and
Jonathan Regis

In the day to day aspects of Corps life, I’ll admit, I sometimes daydream. When you give a kid a window, what do you expect?

I look out upon a different world and landscape than most of my fellow Corpsmates. Though I’m not the first, nor will be the last, Corps member to live in what seems to be the “Shire” of Massachusetts, I reflect quite a bit about my present and future service within the bounds of the boonies. Every community has its own needs and wants, and so does every individual. Boston has proven to be, thanks to the great friends, staff, and community members, a home away from home. At times, it’s been more a place where I see myself serving the folks around me, and leaving behind all I’ve ever known. The Berkshires have their own rural individuality that requires a certain patience and outlook, one which I do not share quite as much.

I’ll circle back on that later. 

I’d like to discuss an activity that we used as a Corps to better understand one another. With over 20 people, I’d say we did this quite soon. 

The Leadership Compass—or Personality Compass—is a small game (I refer to it as a game because it’s funny in its own mean, ironic way) in which groups split themselves into teams based on the four cardinal directions, which align to certain personal characteristics. If you find yourself with South-dominating traits—such as fair, nurturing, and supportive—you may as well call yourself a stuffed animal. You’re tossed around like a rag, and really, you’re the nicest person ever. If you find yourself pointing East, you’ve probably spluttered told the same story to everyone a few times. A blunt, talkative, dreaming, and experimenting spastic, some might say, the Eastie is anything but fragile. But the Westside; is it a complete opposite? Westies are dubbed “Analysts”: dependable, practical, data-driven, the logical organizer. They’re apt to find the hidden flaw in a project, always nit-picking, but staying balanced. To my memory, not too many people look at themselves in this light. Need a decision made? Northies don’t really care for the “easy” way. They’re the natural-born leader: courageous, ambitious, and in control.  

I don’t intend to turn this short blog into an inside joke, as I’m afraid the Compass has morphed into that capacity by its ethereal and thus, humorous nature. We sycophantic minions are apt to play mind games, and stick silly notions into our brains about with whom we fit in, because on many levels, it’s comforting. Shouting Eastsideeeee at Corps meetings, for example, has been a reaffirmation of certain idiosyncratic qualities that are inherent in the very shouting of it...Baby I was born this way. And should you address that annoying, loudmouthed Eastside, you’re already breaking the ground rules of the game—approaching people with this “condition” in a judgmental way harms their spiritual essence. 

I had a violent urge to insert the oracle at Delphi’s words of wisdom here: “Know thyself.” The game’s true original purpose is for you to be honest with who you think you are, and to share these things with other people so they can better work with you. Not only a bonding activity, we can reflect on the types of behavior that would best collaborate with each personality: Westside folks are not going to appreciate you shoving hocus-pocus ideas into their face; Squashing Southies with your own superiority complex is not nice; An Eastside needs to have room to roam; And, acknowledge your Northie, for he/she is truly looking out for the team. 

I thought I’d share this game for a few reasons, one of which pertains to the circle about which I spoke earlier. It needs completing. The Personality Compass is a little like astrology in that you find what you seek. Living far from the Corps, and coming so close to it at random intervals, I’ve been able to draw certain parallels that have given me some direction into not just understanding my nature, but who I’d like to be in the future. 

Also, as Corpsmates, friendships come naturally. In the line of work in which we throw ourselves (or perhaps are thrown in), personality is everything. Each of us has a particular style, and we all make the Corps life, and our mentoring organizations, an extremely valuable experience. 

Like all mythologies, this game changes. We change. More than being about an absolute truth, our perceptions of one another will constantly evolve, and so will our personal dreams about how, and who, to serve for a better world. As the year rolls into an “ending,” I remember most potently that this adventure was begun with my own self-interest of working directly to benefit my community, discover more of Boston, and meet many people. I wanted to build the structure around which I would be a teacher in the Berkshires. These aspirations are fundamentally still there. Since the arrow on my compass is constantly moving, my new journey is bound to begin.

For the downloadable Compass, check out the link: http://encorps.nationalserviceresources.org/resources/documents/LeadershipCompass.pdf

The Importance of Saying “Thank You”

Nikki Leon
East End House 
Cambridge, MA 

I’m grateful to the East End House mentors. They teach our middle school youth how to manage difficult emotions, how to develop focus in class, and how to have fun on rainy days when you’re stuck inside a community center without any video games.  We’ve had mentors who inspire our kids to create hilarious dramatic skits about professional basketball and mentors who coach mentees through their first game of Settlers of Catan.  Mentors support youth engagement in school and in East End House after-school programming.  And, as volunteers who often serve our agency in projects beyond the mentoring program, mentors model the importance of community engagement.  

A trip to the Red Sox

East End House Youth Mentoring Iron Chef Challenge

Coordinating our volunteers can be challenging nevertheless. Promising applicants can’t make the necessary time commitment. Excellent mentors get sidelined by changing life circumstances. Volunteers need training, guidelines, and schedules.  They can be pulled away by work or school. As the East End House Mentoring Training and Support Coordinator, I direct most of my energy towards recruiting and retaining the best volunteers possible – a task that requires as much attention to their needs as it does to the needs of the youth we serve.

If I’ve learned one thing during my service year, it is the importance of supporting those around you who give.  Doing so requires remembering to give a heartfelt thank you. The data suggest as much: test subjects in experiments conducted by researchers at the Wharton School felt a greater sense of self worth when thanked and were more likely to engage in reciprocal generosity and pro-social behavior.  People like to give back when they feel valued. Over the course of my AmeriCorps term, I have observed how our agency’s program directors take the time to appreciate our staff and volunteers. They offer praise and specific feedback about employees’ positive contributions. They celebrate volunteer efforts with personal notes and special events.  Their emphasis on recognizing team members’ strengths appears to motivate the people they work with; it certainly has done so for me.

I hope to give the same encouragement to our mentors. We value the time they spend with youth in our community and the ways in which they fuel their mentees’ growth.  It’s amazing to see how our sixth, seventh, and eighth graders rise to the challenge of bonding with a group of unfamiliar adult professionals and college students.  That our mentees feel comfortable enough to see themselves as partners in these relationships is a testament to our mentors’ warmth and openness.  I try to express our agency’s gratitude frequently: at meetings and in weekly newsletters; through personal emails and phone calls.  We want our mentors to know how crucial their efforts are, both for the growth of our mentoring program and for the development of community in Cambridge as a whole.

I like to think that appreciating others for what they do is part of the culture of East End House.  A few weeks ago, a toddler from our child care program strode into my office and looked my supervisor in the eye: “Thank you, Tim!” he said, ignoring the bowl of cookies on a low chair by the door. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” 

I would encourage anyone who works with volunteers to pass along the message.

Serving at Boston Partners in Education

The Service Men of Ambassador Program

Jonathan Regis
Boston Partners in Education 
Boston, MA

To become an AmeriCorps member through the Highland Street Ambassador of Mentoring cohort has proven to be a very meaningful stop in my career.  Even though it has been challenging, this experience is also eye-opening for me.  I more than halfway through my service-year placement at Boston Partners in Education.  I have joined a team of dedicated non-profit professional, who work hard to fulfill their mission to enhance the academic achievement and nurture the personal growth of Boston’s public school students by providing them with focused, individualized in-school volunteer mentoring support.

Boston Partners has been operating for over 45 years.  They have shifted from being a volunteer focused organization to student focused with mentors who help students gain the skills, self-confidence and motivation they need to succeed academically and personally.  This focus on the students was a significant shift.  Having adopted a mentoring model and applying best practices, we have started to learn more about the students, and measure the effectiveness of our programs.

As an Ambassador of Mentoring, I come into the picture trying to make another important connection with the young people we serve.  I am developing Boston Partners’ parent engagement plan.  The plan will expand and deepen Boston Partners’ work with parents, guardians and families to improve two-communication, outreach and support.  The ultimate goal is to recruit more parent/guardian/family member mentors and supporting them, their children and mentees in both school and home settings across Boston Partners’ core programs.

My previous work experience has prepared me for this task. I’ve been involved in various youth organizing projects in my community for a number of years, watching local youth develop into community leaders dedicated to championing changes that support their community.  Fellow organizers and I realized that there was often a disconnection at home, in which families were not aware of the activities and challenges their youth faced and overcome.

There are real barriers that are limit engagement at home and It is important for us to develop programs and strategies that are proactively engage young people and their families in order to build trust.  We depend on the trust of and help family members recognize the strength children are developing through their activities in the community.

My work with families as a therapeutic mentor reinforced my belief that effective support providers need to communicate appropriately with the family to successfully identify the needs and strengths of that family.  Service delivery can be more effective that way.

In this project, I want approach the families of the students -- parents/ guardians and other members -- as assets.  From these members of the community, we will find great mentors and caring adults.