Hello everyone!
Becca here to update you all on everything that has been keeping us so incredibly busy. Our program has expanded quite a bit to take on more members and we have had a few staff changes as well. Natalie, the old Member Coach has been moved up to Program Coordinator! This left the Member Coach position open. Natalie and Jeff, the Program Director, wanted this position to be filled by an AmeriCorps alumnus who would be able to give insight to the program from a view-point that neither of them had.
So after two years as a member, serving 1,350 hours in total, I moved into role of Member Coach. I took on this role at the very end of July and have been working alongside Natalie to form Fostering Transitions into our ideal AmeriCorps program. This includes new sites, a lot of new members, and different project ideas. As the member coach, I will work closely with the members to make sure that their term runs smoothly and they are using their hours to the fullest potential. We want to make sure that they are not only serving at their host sites but also at other locations in the community and improving our program in other ways. We are working on a few different projects and campaigns that we are all very excited about.
I am working with a small group of members on a Pop the Top campaign where we are collecting soda tabs to be donated to Ronald McDonald House. We are going to be starting within the agency and at our sites and then moving out into the community. We also are preparing for an AIDs awareness campaign that will be throughout the agency and sites as well. Coming up for Martin Luther King Day we will be having a book drive that will benefit clients of the Children’s Home but also those in the East Bluff.
I am incredibly thankful to have been offered this role and to be able to remain a part of the AmeriCorps program. I thoroughly enjoyed my two terms of service and think that our program is incredibly beneficial to the members involved but also to the people that we serve. Many of our sites would not be able to exist without the help of AmeriCorps. It is my goal to stay with the program until I finish my Social Work degree that I am working on.
In the coming days, I will be working with some of the new members to do some introductions!
PeoriaCorps 