The Corporation for National and Community Service provides opportunities for Americans of all ages and backgrounds to serve their

communities and country, primarily through Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America programs. Together with the 

USA Freedom Corps, the Corporation is working to build a culture of citizenship, service, and responsibility in America.

May 2006 Upon request this material will be made available in alternative forms for people with disabilities

Apply online at www.americorps.gov

Or call toll-free 800.942.2677

TTY: 800.833.3722

Corporation for National and Community Service • AmeriCorps*VISTA

1201 New York Avenue, NW • Washington, DC 20525 • 202.606.5000 • TYY: 202.565.2799 • www.nationalservice.gov

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

VISTA ... In Service to America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

History of VISTA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

1965-1969

Lunch in the Kitchen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

House Parties to Powwows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

The Black Cadillac . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Full Circle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

1970-1979

Legacy to Legacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

I See VISTA’s Legacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

The Job I Was Meant to Have . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

Directions in Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

1980-1989

An Unexpected Romance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

Reality Declared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

In My Back Yard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37

Shooting Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39

1990-1999

Just Getting Warmed Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42

The Story’s the Thing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45

The Bright Side of a Wheelchair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47

Testimony to a Legacy of Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49

2000-2005

Shaving My Head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52

Green Space at the Bend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55

A Cry for Tomorrow’s Child . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58

My Time to Give . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60

Katrina’s Legacy: A Family Affair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62

Table of Contents
2 VISTA ... In Service to America

or more than 40 years, VISTA (Volunteers 

in Service to America) has been in the

forefront of helping communities across

America to help themselves fight poverty. Our

members devote a year of their lives to challenge

poverty’s root causes. They do this by mobilizing

community volunteers and local resources, and by

increasing the capacity of people to rely on themselves.

VISTA members help to address societal problems that

may be contributing to the poverty.

The list of VISTA programs that have helped bring

people out of poverty is extensive. Members have

established health clinics, neighborhood watches, and

computer training programs. They have formed many

of our nation’s literacy programs, along with Upward

Bound, Head Start programs, and adult education

initiatives. Parents who want to work or to develop 

a skill can send their children to after-school clubs,

athletics, and day care centers run by VISTA members.

VISTA service has led to urban renewal programs and

neighborhood beautification. Most importantly, many

programs established by VISTA members continue

long after they complete their service. 

Through VISTA, individuals and communities gain 

the knowledge and tools they need to finally get on 

the other side of poverty. This is our members’ legacy,

a legacy 40 years in the making, a legacy that has 

left an indelible mark of achievement, a legacy that

provides hope. Most of all, it’s a legacy of service 

to America. 

The stories in this book are the foundations of 

that legacy: stories of ordinary people meeting

extraordinary challenges. These stories echo the

testimony of a group more than 140,000 strong. 

But a strong foundation is not enough. While this

volume honors all those VISTA members who have

helped create it, we hope that it encourages you to

consider your own service to America. VISTA, now 

part of AmeriCorps, is as strong and vital today as it

has ever been, with more than 6,000 opportunities to

serve each year. Perhaps in these testimonials, you 

will discover what has been a fact since 1965: For 

those who are capable and willing, there is a place 

to serve in VISTA. 

F
3

1965-1969

“In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine,

will rest the final success or failure of our course.” 

With those words in 1961, President John F. Kennedy

launched the War on Poverty. President Kennedy 

never saw his initiative materialize, but his successor,

President Lyndon Johnson, followed his lead and

ushered through Congress the Economic Opportunity

Act of 1964, which created a domestic volunteer

program to engage Americans in the fight. 

In December 1964, the first 20 VISTA members met

with President Johnson at the White House (see photo

below). “Your pay will be low; the conditions of your

labor often will be difficult,” he told them. “But you will

have the satisfaction of leading a great national effort,

and you will have the ultimate reward which comes to

those who serve their fellow man.” 

In the beginning, VISTA members such as Linda

Alkana (Lunch in the Kitchen) worked to establish Head

Start sites. But the program soon grew beyond that.

From 1966 through 1968, VISTA members like Lee

Grant (The Black Cadillac) strengthened communities 

by establishing and organizing a wider range of 

resources for the poor.

By the end of the 1960s, VISTA members were serving

with hundreds of community-based sponsors across the

nation. Among the new programs was Professional

Corps, which recruited lawyers, doctors, and architects

to help revitalize dilapidated areas. To engage busy

college students, VISTA established a program called

Summer Associates, which offered students the

opportunity to spend their summers serving in 

local programs.

The impact of VISTA and the War on Poverty during

their first half-decade was undeniable. As Alkana

writes, “I think we made a positive impact in Scranton

because we bridged the gap between the community,

which was wary of the federal government, and the

federal government itself.” Just a year after Alkana

completed her service in 1966, VISTA had more than

3,000 volunteers in 412 anti-poverty projects

nationwide.

1970-1979

In the 1970s, VISTA volunteers continued empowering

communities to take control of their own fate, often

training them on how to organize together to address

neighborhood needs. Volunteers helped community

residents take action against unfair slumlords, unfair

retail pricing, and poor community maintenance. As a

part of President Richard Nixon’s Reorganization Plan,

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

President Lyndon Johnson, 1964 
4 VISTA ... In Service to America

enacted in 1971, VISTA joined the ACTION agency.

President Nixon wanted to ensure the impact of VISTA

continued within the community even after VISTA

members completed their service. 

To achieve community self-sufficiency and the

sustainability of community-based programming,

VISTA started recruiting volunteers from the

communities being served in addition to volunteers

who relocated to other parts of the country most in

need. Local volunteers such as Linda Sunde (The Job 

I Was Meant to Have) brought a community spirit to 

the program that can only be achieved through a close

relationship between the volunteer and the community

he or she serves. 

The 1970s also saw tremendous growth in the

Professional Corps that was created in the late 1960s 

to enlist lawyers, doctors, and architects. At one time,

150 architects served 32 different projects to fight the

ravages of urban decay.

But buildings were not all that was constructed 

during this time. When volunteers built upon the

achievements of their predecessors, the benefits were

multiplied. Ginlin Woo (Legacy to Legacy) recalls the

catalytic multiplying effect of service during her five

years with VISTA community- and faith-based

programs. To help bring more volunteers like Ginlin

into the program, VISTA established the National 

Grant Program so local programs could attract and

train VISTAs to support ongoing community projects.

The year following Ginlin’s service, 1973, VISTA rose 

to 4,811 members. VISTA maintained this level of

membership throughout the 1970s.

1980-1989

In 1983, budget cuts led to a reduction in VISTA

volunteers and capabilities. However, volunteers

continued to work with communities and help people

in need. George Weber (In My Back Yard) worked with

a specialty community, prisoners in a medium security

prison, while Donna Shapiro Rabiner (Shooting Up)

reached out to those who wanted to get off drugs. 

“My one-year assignment,” Rabiner writes, “made me

realize that I really could ‘make a difference.’” 

By 1985, the number of VISTAs who had served since

the program’s inception reached 80,000. New

provisions in the Domestic Volunteer Service Act

increased the scope of VISTA’s duties, and in 1986,

VISTA launched the VISTA Literacy Corps to

encourage literacy in traditionally underserved regions. VISTA Thomas Taylor with George Price, Desire 

Community Center Executive Director, 1971
VISTA continued to march forward when President

George H.W. Bush called for greater volunteerism. In

January 1989, President Bush said, “We will turn to the

only resource we have that in times of need always

grows—the goodness and the courage of the American

people. I am speaking of a new engagement in the lives

of others, a new activism, hands-on and involved, that

gets the job done.” 

President Bush later said that 

of all the points of light,

VISTA’s shined

the brightest.

1990-1999

President William Clinton built on President Bush’s 

call to action by signing the National and Community

Service Trust Act of 1993, making VISTA part of the

new AmeriCorps and housing it under a new federal

agency, the Corporation for National and Community

Service. 

The reorganization created a new name—

AmeriCorps*VISTA. Reenergized, AmeriCorps*VISTA

made great strides toward its goals. Ray Wright 

(Just Getting Warmed Up) tells the story of fighting

homelessness and hunger in Detroit; Gordon 

Richins (The Bright Side of a Wheelchair) relates how

AmeriCorps*VISTA helped him establish a new career

after being paralyzed in a farm accident; and John

Ossowski (Testimony to a Legacy of Service) tells how 

a community can reclaim its civic pride through 

simple actions.

In 1997, more than 3,300 volunteers served 700

community projects. Two years later, 5,500 volunteers

served 1,200 projects. Previous literacy initiatives were

combined under the America Reads program,

consolidating resources to create adult-literacy, afterschool, and summer programs. Welfare-to-Work

AmeriCorps*VISTA projects were created to help break

the welfare cycle. 

2000-2005

AmeriCorps*VISTA embraced e-government in the new

millennium by implementing an online recruitment

system to gain support from a whole new generation 

of volunteers and sponsors. Since 2000, the number 

of members has reached its highest level ever—

about 6,000 serving annually.

Many of those members with business skills in

microenterprise lending and financial literacy helped 

to launch the Entrepreneur Corps, and hundreds

responded to the devastation caused by Hurricane

Katrina. While disaster response is not

AmeriCorps*VISTA’s primary objective, disasters

commonly hit poor people hardest and create a

poverty-like situation for many more. We saw this

when Hurricane Katrina profoundly affected the

educational, health, nutritional, and economic

infrastructure along the Gulf Coast. AmeriCorps*VISTA

members responded initially by participating at relief

centers and later by helping affected people get their

lives back on track. 

Recent volunteers have not only helped those in need,

but have gained valuable personal experience that stays

with them to this day. Bill Arnold (Shaving My Head)

tells how literacy programs revitalized his own

5 Fighting Poverty for 40 Years
6 VISTA ... In Service to America

community. Mehdi Sina (My Time to Give) credits his

experience of receiving kindness for the kindness he

now provides.

The Future

After more than 40 years of making a difference,

VISTA sets the standard for volunteer mobilization and

is leading the charge to answer President George W.

Bush’s call for volunteer action from every American.

While the future of AmeriCorps*VISTA holds promise,

it is not without its challenges. Requests for aid from

local communities continue to exceed

AmeriCorps*VISTA’s ability to support response

efforts. Helping close that gap is the growing number

of cost-shares, where nonprofits help fund

AmeriCorps*VISTA members serving in their

organizations.

AmeriCorps*VISTA continues to achieve impressive

long-term results in the communities it serves. Studies

show that 70 percent of the programs supported by

AmeriCorps*VISTA are still operating years after

AmeriCorps*VISTA resources are no longer in the

community. These programs have led to significant

accomplishments in education, human needs, the

environment, public safety, and organizational capacity.

For great examples of how programs assisted by

AmeriCorps*VISTA have continued after

AmeriCorps*VISTA’s participation, read Reality

Declared, by Wisconsin Congresswoman Gwendolynne

Moore, and I See VISTA’s Legacy, by former

Washington Secretary of State Ralph Munro.

Studies alone don’t adequately tell the story of VISTA’s

legacy of service. The real stories are told in the

following pages. They tell of rebuilding neighborhoods,

making communities safe from gangs, teaching people

to read, feeding the homeless, addressing domestic

violence, helping the impoverished succeed, providing

positive role models, creating new businesses, and

teaching citizens to take leadership roles.

These stories embody the legacy of service built by

dedicated volunteers and alumni, and they provide a

window into what AmeriCorps*VISTA can achieve in

the future. They tell of the positive, lasting effects of

VISTA service, both on the communities served and on

the AmeriCorps*VISTA members themselves. 

By supporting AmeriCorps*VISTA, whether through

funding, in-kind donations, or volunteering, you can

build on this legacy of service and help fight poverty

across America. 

VISTA Poster

in the

Lunch

Kitchen

’d been a VISTA volunteer back in Arkansas

three years earlier. Now, in 1968, with a Civil

Rights leader murdered and many American

cities in flames, my memories returned to Arkansas

and to things I found as shocking as the assassination. 

I was 18 years old when I joined VISTA and had 

just finished my first year at UCLA (University of

California, Los Angeles), majoring in International

Relations. I joined because, as a recent immigrant from

Canada, I could not join the Peace Corps. I also joined

VISTA because, as corny as it sounds, I wanted to help

make the world a little better. 

My family felt a mixture of pride and anxiety with 

me leaving college and home. They expressed more

concern when they learned I was assigned to Arkansas,

which at the time was infamous for its prejudices and

its governor’s celebrated stand against the integration

of a Little Rock high school. 

I was assigned to Paris, Ark., with Mary Ann Smerdel.

We were two white 18-year-olds, she from Indiana and

I from California. It was the time of the Civil Rights

Movement, and in Arkansas “out-of-staters” meant

“agitators.” We were two non-southerners in a world

where teenage girls either lived at home or were

married, and here we were, two kids representing the

not-too-popular government. We were placed in this

town without transportation or a job and in humidity

we’d never experienced. Fortunately for us, fellow

VISTA volunteer Jossie Hughes, a retired writer, was

assigned to a town a few miles away and we could see

her periodically.

Paris, Ark., was like a movie set. It was a small town

(population: 3,000) built around a town square. It was

in that town square that I had my first exposure to 

the layers of prejudice in the South. Segregation was

everywhere. “Whites Only” signs hung on park 

benches and water fountains, and the seemingly more

innocuous “We reserve the right to refuse service to

anyone” messages were posted on restaurant windows.

What surprised me more, however, was seeing black

people get off the sidewalk to let a white person go by.

I was outraged then, and I still am, to think that these

wide, wooden sidewalks that framed the town square

were a means of keeping some people “in their place.”

8 VISTA ... In Service to America

By Linda Kelly Alkana—VISTA, 1965-1966, Scranton, Ark.

I was driving in Los Angeles, listening to the 

Beatles sing a cover version of a Ray Charles song— 

“Tell your mama, tell your pa, I’m gonna send you

back to Arkansas”—when I heard about the

assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

I
9

Another event occurred a few weeks later that was

equally as shocking. Mary Ann and I attended an

introductory luncheon with VISTA bigwigs and some

local Arkansas officials. One member of the Arkansas

contingent was African American. He did not join us

for lunch, but rather ate in the kitchen. In Canada and

California I had read about segregation in schools, but

never imagined it extended that far. I’ll never forget 

my shock. 

It was the memories of these events that gave me

perspective during the turmoil in the days after King’s

assassination. It is probably this perspective that

affected my career choice. I decided to pursue a

graduate-level degree in history. Taking a cue from the

Civil Rights Movement, I studied social change and

how people come together to fight for their rights. Even

during our training, we VISTA volunteers had a sense

that history was being made. Later, working on my

doctorate degree, I studied those who were making it. 

While in Paris in 1965, Mary Ann and I organized a

clothing drive, accompanied a welfare worker on her

rounds, and finally made friends with some of the

young people of the area. We had little to do in Paris,

and many of its citizens were wary of us, a situation

further aggravated when a black VISTA volunteer from

out of state visited us. So we moved to Scranton, Ark.

(population: 229) and worked as VISTA volunteers in

Head Start and the grade school. We fit in better in

Scranton, which was a small German Catholic

community (Mary Ann and I were both Catholic).

In Scranton, our involvement with Head Start was fun.

We loved the kids. We worked with the teachers and

coordinated transportation to the school. Because both

the government and the town wanted to get this

program implemented, all children in this small, white

community were part of the program. Its immediate

success allowed us to “work our way out of the job.”

We then became involved with the grade school

system. In Arkansas, this was an era before any special

school programs. Students either sank or swam. Mary

Ann and I worked with students who needed help—

we tutored, we encouraged, and we made friends. We

worked in concert with the Superintendent of Schools

and the teachers. With Jossie’s help, we also linked

teenagers with possible employers. 

The spirit behind the movements for social change that

blossomed during that era’s War on Poverty was

immensely important. I think we made a positive

impact in Scranton because we bridged the gap

between the community, which was wary of the federal

government, and the federal government itself. We

helped the community understand that the federal

government was waging the War on Poverty on the

community’s behalf. 

Before we left, the citizens of Scranton called us to the

school gym for a surprise “Thank You” award ceremony.

Mary Ann became such a part of the community that

she stayed there and married a local boy.

I left Arkansas with a greater belief in my abilities 

and a better understanding of different kinds of people.

I eventually returned to UCLA, got my doctorate in

history and now teach a university course on

the United States in the 1960s, in which I

incorporate my experiences with the War

on Poverty and my memories of the Civil

Rights Movement.

Today my students often ask me what they

can do when they graduate. I tell them

about AmeriCorps and encourage them 

to discover its possibilities. 

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years Linda Kelly Alkana, to
VISTA Poster

rowing up in Columbus, Ohio, in the 1960s 

I never dreamed that one day I would hang 

out at powwows and rodeos instead of house

parties and rock shows. That changed during my

sophomore year at Ohio State University. I was

thinking about taking a one-year break from school,

so I submitted an application to VISTA. Several weeks

later, I was on my way to Salt Lake City, Utah, for

VISTA’s Native American reservations training

program. My friends thought I was crazy for

volunteering in the first place. They were convinced 

of it when they found out I was going to a Native

American reservation.

I had no idea what to expect because I had never met a

Native American. Like many people, my impressions

until then were formed by television and movies.

Needless to say, a huge surprise awaited me.

My first real taste of life on the reservation was on a

field training exercise on the Wind River Shoshone

Reservation in Wyoming. I thought the Native

Americans would welcome me as a Soul Brother since

we were both members of minority groups that had

suffered racial discrimination. My thinking changed 

the first day when I realized that all of the other

trainees—except me—had been placed with local

families. When I asked why, my training supervisor

told me they were having trouble finding a family to

accept the “Colored Trainee.”

I was finally placed with a white rancher married to a

Shoshone woman. His name was Charlie and I’ll never

forget him. He and his wife helped me understand 

why Native Americans didn’t trust any non-Native

Americans: broken treaties, the use of Black soldiers 

in the Indian wars of the 1800s, and, ironically, most

Native Americans’ impressions of blacks were formed

from television and media coverage. It was a tough

situation, but after a few weeks I began to make friends

and was accepted by most of the locals.

Shortly thereafter, I received one of the greatest honors

of my life. They invited me to participate in the annual

10 VISTA ... In Service to America

By Clifford Richmond—VISTA, 1966-1967, Nez Perce Reservation, Idaho

I recently marked the 40th anniversary of my VISTA

service. Looking back, I have many fond memories 

of that time. As one of the few African-American

volunteers assigned to a Native American reservation,

I feel pretty safe in saying that many of my

experiences were unique.

to

House Parties

Powwows

G
11

Sun Dance Ceremony, a sacred event not open to

outsiders. The medicine man must bless participants

before they erect the sacred lodge where the ceremony

will be held. We first cut a sacred pole that would hold

the buffalo skull, the focal point of the

ceremony. During the four-day event,

dancers are not allowed food since it

is a purification ceremony designed to

strengthen the spirit. It was a very

spiritual event for me and helped

prepare me for things to come.

After training, three of us were

assigned to the Nez Perce Reservation

in Idaho as community development

specialists. Our job was to help local

residents develop programs to address

problems on the reservation. There

was no shortage of problems: high

unemployment, high rates of

alcoholism, high dropout rates for high school students,

and chronic health problems like diabetes.

With only one year to make an impact, we agreed to

focus on education and developing opportunities for

the youth to pursue their dreams. We implemented

remedial reading programs for the elementary school

children and an Upward Bound program in

cooperation with Washington State University for the

secondary school children. Other projects included local

participation in a Western Indian Art exhibit at the

University of Utah and the publication of the official

reservation newsletter, Coyote Tracks. We distributed

1,000 copies a month. I also became the assistant

scoutmaster of the local Boy Scout troop. As luck would

have it, the World Boy Scout Jamboree was held in

Farragut, Idaho, in 1967, and our scout troop was able

to attend. For many of the kids, the Jamboree marked

the first time they had been off the reservation. It was

very exciting for them to meet other scouts from

around the world.

Over time, I developed many close personal

relationships with locals and earned their trust. While

there were times when I was referred

to as “that Colored,” or worse, such

labels were rare. Eventually, I was 

just called “the VISTA.”

Social life on the reservation consisted

of powwows—gatherings to enjoy

traditional activities of dancing,

drumming, and playing stick game 

(a form of gambling)—and rodeos. 

At most powwows I was the only

non-Native American, yet I always felt

welcomed. I traveled to many rodeos,

including the Pendelton Roundup,

an annual rodeo in Oregon that 

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

They invited me

to participate in

the annual Sun

Dance Ceremony,

a sacred event not

open to outsiders.

Clifford Richmond, 1960s
12 VISTA ... In Service to America

boasts the largest gathering of Native Americans in 

the United States.

One of my most memorable moments was when Ida

Blackeagle, granddaughter of the famous Nez Perce,

Chief Joseph, invited me to her home. She shared her

recollections of the traditional Nez Perce lifestyle and

gave me a pair of beaded moccasins. When that

happened, I knew I had been accepted.

When my year was over, many people asked me to stay

for another. But the sense of isolation had been

especially acute for me since there were no blacks

within 100 miles. While I loved and respected their

culture, I yearned to return to mine.

It would be hard to measure the impact of my time on

the reservation, but I do know that at least five Native

American students enrolled in Upward Bound. I hope

they went on to pursue their college degrees. The

Coyote Tracks newsletter was still circulating three

years after I left. Most of all, I am grateful for the

opportunities that VISTA provided, allowing me to

spend time in a community that I never would 

have explored.

After leaving the reservation, I spent seven years in

various positions with VISTA where I fought for the

recruitment of more minorities and for better training

and support for volunteers in the field. We succeeded

in developing VISTA projects that were staffed by

locally recruited volunteers from the communities 

they served. 

During my later career as a health education specialist,

I created and managed a national program to educate

minority populations about high blood pressure, which

brought together health providers from previously

underrepresented ethnic communities. These activities

were documented and disseminated by the National

Institutes of Health’s National High Blood Pressure

Education Program, long considered an exemplary

health promotion program. I also authored Guidelines

for the Use of Volunteers in High Blood

Pressure Detection and Control,

published by the National

Heart, Lung, and Blood

Institute, National Institutes 

of Health.

My success in these and many

other efforts was a direct

result of my VISTA

experience. For that I

will always be grateful. 

Clifford Richmond, today
Late ‘60s, Houston, Texas. Tough city. Racially divided

city. And there I was, a fledgling VISTA volunteer. It

was the year Martin Luther King was killed, the year

Eugene McCarthy and George Wallace ran for President. 

VISTA Poster 

Black

Cadillac

he Vietnam War and flower power raged. Otis

Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” 

and The Doors’ “Hello, I Love You” played 

on the radio.

After training at the University of Oklahoma—I was

recruited while a grad student at the University of

Oregon—I was assigned to the Latin-American

Community (LAC) Project with VISTA volunteers from

around the country living and working in Houston’s

barrios and huge black communities.

The LAC Project was established by the Office of

Economic Opportunity as an agency to supervise

VISTA volunteers who were building community

organizations in poor, underserved Houston

neighborhoods. Located in an old, rundown building,

VISTAs in Houston gathered there to set strategy,

exchange information, and form a support system for

each other.

The assignment was opened-ended: Find community

leaders, call meetings, identify concerns, chart action. 

The goal was to leave behind an ongoing, vital

community force.

Soon after I arrived, I was dropped off in the black

neighborhood of Harrisburg and told, “Go find a place

to live.” I began strolling the streets, a white kid from

Los Angeles with a beard and a mound of curly hair. I

thought, “What would my Jewish mother be thinking

right now?”

Harrisburg was a small, isolated, sidewalk-less nook of a

community not far from Houston’s Hobby Airport. It

was pocked with old, often dilapidated single-family

homes, an adjacent housing project, an elementary

school, a Baptist church, and a corner grocery store that

charged way more than the supermarket a couple of

miles away in the white neighborhood.

I found a roach-infested, partly furnished house, $97.50

a month, and moved in. Now, more than 30 years later,

I can recall every room, including the small, showerless

bathroom, the tub being the one place for respite from

the brutally humid Houston weather. Still, in my mind,

I can see the neighbors (one who knocked on my door

13

By Lee Grant—VISTA, 1968-1969, Houston, Texas

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

T
14 VISTA ... In Service to America

Christmas day, holding a plate of food and worrying

that I was alone), and the kids who hung at my place

making sure I was part of their world and they were

part of mine.

Here was a poor community (at least in material

things) that took me in, often fed me, watched out for

me, befriended me ... and I was there working for

them!

During my time in Harrisburg, we formed a

community organization that took on the local welfare

office, with members acting as monitors when folks

with little experience approaching government

bureaucracy went there asking questions about

eligibility and other concerns. We dealt with youngsters

not going to school because they didn’t have shoes by

visiting organizations like the YMCA or large religious

institutions in town, letting them know there were kids

without the basics. Response was spotty. We also met

with the local school staff, which pretty much shrugged

off our concerns as facts of life. 

We began a tutoring program that focused mostly on

reading. Eventually we corralled a

group of white students from a local

high school who took it on as an

extracurricular club to help

Harrisburg youngsters after school.

What I remember are the families

who often had barely enough to eat

but always put a plate for me at their

table, and the kids. Three in particular

would knock on my door late at night,

a shelter when the black Cadillac

pulled up to their gate. When their

mother was entertaining a client, she sent

them outdoors, away from the indignity of the work

she did to support them.

Though I was there to impact their lives, those folks

and that community had an enormous impact on my

life. We stood in line for welfare cheese and beans, at

county hospitals for treatment that was patronizing and

insensitive, at schools where black kids were never told

by counselors they could achieve and

be somebody.

Those years, VISTA volunteers in

Houston were not supported by the

white community or the local

politicians. We were stopped and

harassed by cops, insulted viciously

for living in minority neighborhoods.

As a diverse group of Anglos, blacks,

and Latinos, we’d be ridiculed and

insulted for picnicking together 

in public parks or having dinner 

in restaurants. In this big city, we felt safest in 

our neighborhoods. 

... those folks 

and that 

community had

an enormous

impact on 

my life.

Lee Grant, 1968
15

The folks there were not always sure why we were

there, but glad we were.

During my tenure, a community organization was

established and led mostly by young adults, almost all

of them women. It worked to not only better the lives

of residents but helped this neglected neighborhood

emerge from the shadows of city life. Progress was

slow. Success meant a Harrisburg person becoming the

first black saleswoman at the downtown Neiman

Marcus. It meant folks identifying everyday needs ... a

used refrigerator for a family without one, visiting the

local junior high to discuss why it was always the black

kid singled out and sent home after playground

scuffles.

VISTA volunteers participated in a “sensitivity session”

with the rough Houston Police Department. We met in

a room at police headquarters, suspiciously facing each

other. They accused us of being “troublemakers” from

the north. We, in turn, came loaded with a backlog of

intimidating incidents against folks in our

neighborhoods.

The day I left Houston and VISTA, a contingent from

Harrisburg followed me to the highway to see me off. I

recall looking over my shoulder and noticing that each

person had a white handkerchief. They were waving

them high so I could see.

They told us during training that if we touched one life,

we were successful. I hope I touched at least one. For

sure, the people in the community of Harrisburg,

Houston, Texas, touched this life.

Since serving in VISTA, I’ve spent a career in

journalism as a reporter and editor (I am the arts 

editor of the San Diego Union-Tribune). I influence 

the kinds of stories that get into the paper. I pick 

and choose what I want to write about. I hire people. 

I spend time with high school kids in the inner city

who come to the paper to shadow me. I go to their

schools to monitor their work. And, all these years 

later, that neighborhood, those people, that time,

stays in my heart.

My sensibilities, my view of the

world, the person I am has been

shaped by that Houston, Texas,

neighborhood, by the people

there, by my time as a Volunteer

in Service to America.

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

Lee Grant, today
VISTA Poster

Full

Circle

hat’s when a friend told me about a new

program. He had just returned from a year’s

service in VISTA and talked about giving back

to the community, of gaining experience and

knowledge of himself and the world. I wanted a

meaningful, rewarding experience where I could make

a difference, grow, and reach out to others. VISTA

seemed to fit the bill.

After a week’s training in the seedy Tenderloin district

of San Francisco and another week in the beautiful

Napa Valley wine country, five of us were sent to a

Women’s Job Corps Center in Albuquerque, N.M., to be

resident advisors for the young women living there in

an old converted hotel. The women arrived mostly

from surrounding states, but included a small group

from Hawaii. 

The group was predominantly African-American,

followed by Hispanic, Caucasian, and Hawaiian. The

Job Corps provided education courses so they could get

their GED (general equivalency diploma). To help

ensure stability for their future, Job Corps also offered

training for occupations ranging from secretarial to

childcare to store clerks. Some women even attended

beauty school. Two of us had teaching credentials and

were able to substitute in many of the GED classes.

We spent most of our time with the residents serving

as their mentors and confidants. We were expected to

interact with them as much as possible. At night, when

the head advisor left, it was our responsibility to keep

order and watch over the women. There was one

security guard on duty and cameras surrounding the

building. It was like being in a fortress. All of the

inhabitants, except for us, were expected to be in 

by curfew. 

16 VISTA ... In Service to America

By Karalee Marshall—VISTA, 1968-1969, Albuquerque, N.M.,

and AmeriCorps*VISTA, 2000–2003, Everett, Wash.

I first joined VISTA in 1968: the year of the Beatles,

flower children, demonstrations, LSD, marijuana, and

the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and

Robert F. Kennedy. After graduate school, I could

have joined the demonstrations or “dropped out,”

but I wanted to connect to a dividing nation. 

I needed to get involved.

T
17

There really was no way we could have been prepared

for what we walked into at the center. There was

underlying tension at all times; arguments and racial

problems were always there, waiting to surface. It was

our job to ensure that these did not escalate or erupt.

Not an easy task. The atmosphere was unlike anything

we had ever experienced. The women we came to

know and understand had led lives drastically different

from ours. We never had to overcome the barriers of

race and poverty. We were not viewed as their equals

because we were privileged: white, educated, upper

class, and free. We had seemingly unlimited access 

to the world, whereas they were bound by norms 

and stereotypes. 

Over time, the residents did come to

respect and accept us as a valuable

resource, their friends. I found it

amusing that they actually had more

money than we did; and were always

willing to buy us soda, candy, and

other treats. They lived and ate, joked

and sang with us, but still we were

different. We wanted to include them

in our society, but I realize now we

actually wanted them to be the same

as we were. I naively thought that if

they were to accept all we represented,

their lives would be fine.

I’m not sure if we made any difference in the world. 

I’d like to think we did, but I’ll never be truly sure. I

met a lot of different women, and I hope I helped and

inspired more than one. I do know that year made a

huge difference in my life. I was never the same person

again. That naive young woman was permanently

changed. I learned there are others around me who 

are different, and that is how it should be. I came to

appreciate the diversity in our world and never looked

at our social system in quite the same way again. Now I

am more cognizant of the needs of those around us and

the ways we can all give to others. Although a part of

me has become a little jaded with time, I still believe in

the goodness of people and service.

My VISTA story, however, didn’t end in the 1960s. 

I went on to become a teacher, wife, and mother. 

After retiring, I saw an advertisement for an

AmeriCorps*VISTA position with the Washington

Reading Corps, a program that helps struggling readers.

I was immediately attracted to the opportunity to

promote literacy because literacy and education are

things close to my heart. 

After becoming an

AmeriCorps*VISTA Leader, I helped

establish Tutoring and Volunteer

Management curriculums and

training. My involvement with the

United Way, Member Development

Institutes, Office of the Superintendent

of Public Instruction, AmeriCorps,

Points of Light Conference, and local

youth committees helped prepare me

for these duties. I built partnerships

with local businesses that donated

capital and materials to help the

Washington Reading Corps program,

and I recruited volunteers that provided individualized

attention to students. I also assisted with community

beautification projects, as well as empowered and

increased awareness of marginalized groups via the

Civic Engagement Program. 

My dedication to achieving the Washington Reading

Corps goals led to my current position as a co-site

supervisor at Lowell Elementary School in Everett,

Wash., where I oversee AmeriCorps members who

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

I do know that

year made a

huge difference

in my life. 

I was never the

same person

again. 
18 VISTA ... In Service to America

have volunteered their year of service here. Together,

we test, schedule, tutor, recruit, and train adult and

peer/cross-age tutors, set up and coordinate an 

after-school reading program, and involve the 

parents and the community in all of our events. 

What I’m doing is challenging and rewarding. I love

every minute of it. When you’re in service to others

you become a positive force that helps someone attain

new levels, levels that would not have been reached

without you. Your efforts, no matter how small, can

help someone achieve their fullest potential. 

While personally satisfying and rewarding, service also

adds perspective to struggles and hardships you might

encounter. But if you forge ahead with devotion to your

cause and your eye on the future, it helps make your

service a success.

In many ways, my time serving as a VISTA came full

circle. The Kennedys, two of the Beatles, and Martin

Luther King, Jr., are gone, and once again our country

faces a turbulent time. There are still drugs, racial

problems, and young men dying in faraway countries. 

I still see fear in the eyes of our children. People still go

to bed hungry, unable to read or find employment. 

I know now, though, that people still work, as I do, to

make a difference. As long as we continue enlisting

others in service to one another, we will be successful.

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, dream has not yet been

realized, but we’re a little closer.

VISTA Poster

to Legacy

Legacy

20 VISTA ... In Service to America

By Ginlin Woo—VISTA, 1968-1972, Seattle, Wash., and Brooklyn, N.Y.

Early in my VISTA experience I organized a community

tenants meeting. I spent four weeks knocking on

doors to invite residents, asking local groceries to

donate refreshments and door prizes, convincing

speakers to make an appearance, and translating

information into bilingual formats. 

nd what did I have to show for it? Seven people

came to the meeting. Seven! My dreams were

dashed. A thick sense of despair engulfed me. 

I failed. 

I was so embarrassed I almost quit VISTA service early.

I was ready to do it at our debriefing meeting, right

after my VISTA supervisor had his say. While he 

spoke though, I couldn’t believe my ears. He called 

the tenants meeting “real progress.” 

Fortunately, my VISTA supervisor, Father Brian J.

Karvelis, was much wiser and more grounded than 

me. He could do this because he held the history 

and desires of the community before himself, and

understood what it took to bring about real, substantive

change. For him, the gathering of seven folks that

evening to discuss their vision for affordable housing

was not “a failure,” but real progress made through the

efforts of a lot of people, including the dreams and

struggles of many tenants that long preceded my

arrival. His gentle reframing of my lens helped me

understand my place in the work, the struggles, and the

history of that community. How he saw it and lived it

taught me what I needed to approach my service and

work. It’s all about honoring the history of a

community and joining my legacy with its legacies. 

A few months earlier, in the summer of 1968, with one

year of college and community-active Asian-American

parents as role models, I signed on with VISTA for a

summer internship program in my hometown of

Seattle. The Vietnam War, the civil rights movement,

mounting unrest across U.S. urban communities, and

increased student activism on many campuses

provided the backdrop to my service. That initial

experience with VISTA launched five years of living

and serving in Brooklyn, N.Y.

It was an important opportunity for me, not only to

serve in the very poor, multicultural, multiethnic

communities of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, but also to be

coached by a dynamic team of community youth and

leaders. They taught me about organizing a community.

A
21

They used buzzwords like development, community

building, anti-poverty, social justice, and anti-oppression.

Whatever words you use, our goal was community

empowerment. 

Father Karvelis was my main “coach” and VISTA

supervisor and teacher. I was privileged to join his team

because he had a vision for the community. In fact, he

gave the community a vision for itself. Instead of

watching Williamsburg crumble, he spoke of

development. Instead of living on the welfare rolls, he

pushed for community ownership. Instead of apathy,

he spoke of mobilizing, leadership, and empowerment.

All with a gentle hand because he never wavered in the

faith that it could be done. For me, this was truly

service and learning at its best. 

By day, I served with a team of VISTAs and VISTA

lawyers on reforming housing and education litigation.

By night, I worked at the Transfiguration Youth Center

as a gang counselor, youth program developer, and

grant writer. During my years in Brooklyn we tackled

problems with a holistic approach. We implemented

educational initiatives by establishing a bilingual preschool, an after-school study club, and enhanced youth

programming. We helped the community gain greater

control of local schools.

Financially, we helped establish

a community credit union. We

established a community

chapel to tackle issues of faith.

Youth leaders became peer

counselors. A community halfway house helped some get

back on their feet. In short, we

engaged the community and

challenged its citizens to be

community advocates. 

While I worked hard to put in my “24-7,” I know that

my role was a part of a whole. The legacy passed on to

me by community members easily left a far greater

imprint on my life than my years of VISTA service left

on the community and the many lives I had an

opportunity to connect with. My personal perception of

poverty, diversity, service, community, compassion, and

commitment were defined by the work and passion of

community members—a list too long to name. Each of

them holds a special place in my heart, especially

Father Brian. 

For the past number of years, I, along with several

beloved colleagues and friends, have been invited to

help facilitate and contribute to the preparation and

training of AmeriCorps*VISTA supervisors and VISTA

members. Paying the legacy forward has translated into

the values we instill in new VISTA members, VISTA

leaders, and supervisors throughout our training. The

sense of pride and purpose, admiration, community

connectedness, and hope I have after each training

event for VISTA candidates and supervisors has

everything to do with the legacy of my VISTA service.

Had my VISTA service never happened, I know I

wouldn’t have developed in the way that I have. My

VISTA service facilitated life choices that included law

school and continued volunteer service, both with

VISTA and other organizations across the nation. The

perceptual lens that Father Brian helped shape so long

ago helped me retain my ongoing focus on human

relations, diversity, and cross-cultural collaboration.

Now, lots of work and many, many cities later, my

internal reflections continue to be about addressing

issues of poverty and contributing to sustainable

strategies. My continued involvement over more 

than 36 years has allowed my legacy to touch many

communities.

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years Ginlin Woo, 1960s
VISTA Poster

SeeVISTA

s

Legacy

he boy had never spoken a word. Everyone

thought he never would, but that was

unacceptable to me. I had become a volunteer

to make a difference in people’s lives, so I taught him

to speak. 

That experience affected me both personally and

professionally in ways I wouldn’t realize for years. 

For more than the next three decades, I would serve 

the state of Washington in several positions, most

prominently as the state’s longest-tenured Secretary of

State. Throughout my career, VISTA contributed to the

improvement of our state in many ways. 

The story of VISTA’s impact on me and our home state

begins with the Governor’s visit to the facility where I

was volunteering and where that little boy lived. He

was impressed and complimentary of the breakthrough

with the boy. Several weeks later he called me and

personally asked me to head downstate to be the state’s

first volunteer coordinator. Of course, VISTAs made up

a portion of the volunteers I was to assist with.

The need for VISTA shined through on one of my first,

most challenging, and most memorable projects.

It was the mid-to-late seventies, the Vietnam War was

over, and the United States had to find a place for

hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing Southeast

Asia. These were people who had supported the

American presence during the war and now faced

retribution from a new regime if they remained. Many

had fought alongside our troops in Vietnam. Some 

had even worked for the deposed South Vietnamese

government. Now they needed a place to make a 

new life. 

So they fled to the United States, the land of

opportunity. Men, women, and children carried all they

owned in bags or sacks. For temporary housing, the

refugees were sent to Camp Pendleton, north of San

Diego, Calif. But they obviously couldn’t remain there

indefinitely. Washington’s Governor, along with the

state House and Senate, agreed to resettle many of the

refugees in Washington. But it wasn’t as easy as saying,

“Hey, sure, come live in our state.”

22 VISTA ... In Service to America

By former Washington Secretary of State, Ralph Munro

While I never served as a VISTA, I’ve seen firsthand

the impact VISTA has had on an entire state. In 1965,

a developmentally challenged child was abandoned and

placed in a state institution. When I met him in 1966,

I was a volunteer in that facility. 

T
23

We called on VISTA to help.

Volunteers set up a temporary

settlement camp and worked with

other groups to settle refugees in

communities throughout the state

and find jobs for them. In short,

the VISTAs on that project pointed

the way for these settlers to rebuild

their lives.

Around the time I was elected to 

my first term as Secretary of State,

VISTAs were also confronting the

social problems on our Native

American reservations. The

reservations were in a sorry state—

crime was rampant, drug and alcohol abuse was all too

frequent, and the tribes were flat broke. None of that

deterred the VISTAs. Instead, they focused on fixing

the problems. 

With so many issues, they decided that getting

reservation children through school would be the 

best place to begin. VISTAs kept the kids in school 

and set up community and athletic programs. This

reestablished community pride and kept many kids off

drugs and out of gangs. In turn, crime rates dropped.

Because of all the good work VISTA did in Washington,

the Governor wanted volunteerism to grow across the

state. Representatives from both sides of the aisle in the

statehouse agreed and worked together to develop the

Washington Service Corps—kind of like a Washington

State VISTA.

During my tenure as Secretary of State, I constantly

advocated VISTA or the Service Corps to young people.

I wrote letters of recommendation for countless young

citizens because I saw this as an incredible opportunity

for them. Plus, there’s an old saying that it’s easier to

get a job when you have a job. And

VISTAs work 24/7, 365 days a year.

The experience and opportunities the

program provided have been a boon

to the community by helping the

volunteers grow and develop careers.

VISTA has helped us to better serve

the people of our state, and it has 

been an honor and a privilege to 

see the direct, long-term effect of 

the VISTA program. 

In 1996, I saw VISTA’s legacy in the

communities where the Vietnamese

refugees had settled. As part of the

20th anniversary of their resettlement, I went to high

school graduations where the children of refugees were

valedictorians of their classes. And their parents were 

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

Ralph Munro, today

Because of all 

the good work

VISTA did in

Washington, the

Governor wanted

volunteerism to

grow across 

the state.
24 VISTA ... In Service to America

no longer “refugees.” They were Americans, part of the

fabric of their communities.

I see VISTA’s legacy when looking at Washington’s

Native American reservations. The kids who

participated in VISTA programs 25 years ago are now

the tribal leaders. Those tribes are much better off now

and they have a bright future.

I see VISTA’s legacy when the Washington Service

Corps teaches children to read, responds to natural

disasters, or restores our environment. VISTA was not

only a catalyst for this in-state program, but the two

organizations have also partnered on several occasions. 

I see VISTA’s legacy in Washington’s House of

Representatives, in its superior and lower court judges,

in its prominent business people, in its hospitals and

doctor’s offices, as well as in its schools and colleges,

because that’s where many of those who served in

VISTA, and those they helped, now work.

I see VISTA’s legacy in the eyes of that boy we taught

to speak. He’s 40-years-old now, just like VISTA, and I

am his legal guardian. Through him I discovered the

rewards of volunteering and VISTA—not by serving—

but by benefiting from that service in my professional

capacity. 

VISTA’s legacy lives on in communities across

Washington and in the people who have made a better

life because of it. VISTA’s legacy is that it has, without

a doubt, made—and continues to make—our state, our

country, a better place.

Vietnamese refugees learning to speak English
The best thing that ever happened to me was not

getting into the Peace Corps in 1973. If I had been

accepted, I probably would not have served in VISTA,

not become the director of a VISTA project, and not

found my current post overseeing VISTA and Senior

Corps projects in Wisconsin.

VISTA Poster

to

Job

Have

I Was Meant

or 30 years VISTA has permeated many aspects

of my life, changing me in the process. Over the

years I have been a VISTA, recruited VISTAs,

trained VISTAs, and supervised VISTAs. I even wrote

my master’s thesis on VISTA. I’m still in national

service. My title has changed, but my commitment is

the same.

In 1975, VISTA was recruiting locally and I applied to a

program in my hometown called Milwaukee Associates

in Urban Development. M.A.U.D., as it was known,

assigned me to a community organizing project called

Milwaukee Alliance of Concerned Citizens, or MACC. 

I guess we were really into acronyms even then. MACC

was an Alinsky-style organization, which means that it

took a political activist approach to community

organizing. Trainers from the Industrial Areas

Foundation, an organization founded by Saul Alinsky

and dedicated to supporting community organizing,

would come up from Chicago to train us in how to

organize people to act for social change. 

There were about 40 of us at my pre-service orientation

to VISTA, all from the Milwaukee area. In those days

you got fingerprinted when you joined VISTA, an

intimidating thought when embarking on a career as a

social activist. But it was VISTA’s 10th Anniversary and

everyone thought that was pretty remarkable. We all

received a little gold commemorative pin with the

VISTA logo, which I still have. A number of the other

VISTA trainees are still friends and colleagues.

My VISTA assignment at MACC was to provide

research on crime statistics and city and county law

enforcement budget data for the Older Adult Crime

and Safety Committee. I also trained the seniors on

doing their own research, writing press releases, and

talking to the media, and we role played testifying at

government hearings. As a shy kid, I frankly thought

this would be the ideal job—just sit in a back room 

and compile data. I’d been a research assistant for one

of my professors in college, so this would be a cinch.

Much to my chagrin, I soon became the lead organizer 

25

By Linda A. Sunde—VISTA, 1975-1976, Milwaukee, Wis.

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

F
26 VISTA ... In Service to America

of the Older Adult Crime and Safety Committee,

but it changed my life forever. 

I’m not sure we reduced crime much

during the year I was a VISTA, but I

learned a lot and met some really

wonderful people. Working with older

adults is a joy. They always want you

to stay and visit, and they always want

to feed you! I especially remember

Sister Margaret Shekelton, who was

the chair of the committee. She was a

fierce advocate for justice, but with a gentle dignity 

that won over our opponents. Whenever we met,

it was always over tea.

As Alinsky-style organizers, we had been trained 

that the organizers are not out front as leaders or

spokespersons. Our job was to empower others to

leadership roles. This and other lessons have continued

to guide my work in community service over the years.

Several of the women on the committee who had been

pretty shy about testifying or talking to reporters

became seasoned pros by the time I left. A few years

ago I attended a Retired and Senior Volunteer Program

recognition in Milwaukee and discovered that one of

the women I had worked with

was receiving an award for

her 20 plus years of service

as a Court Watch volunteer.

When I introduced myself

she didn’t remember me

specifically, but did

remember the

VISTA project and

credited it with

getting her started 

as a Court Watch volunteer. I tell that story now when I

speak to AmeriCorps*VISTAs at trainings and

elsewhere to illustrate that it might

take more than 20 years for them to

realize they made a difference in

someone’s life.

Within a year of ending my VISTA

service, I was tapped to become a

VISTA supervisor with M.A.U.D.

About a year later I was named

executive director of the organization

and stayed there for about 15 years. The VISTA

program at M.A.U.D. was a prototype for consortium

projects around the country. The organization did most

of its own recruiting, placement, training, supervision,

and program administration for its VISTA components,

acting as a sort of mini state office. Not everyone in

ACTION liked the concept, but it worked. My master’s

thesis on VISTA used the M.A.U.D. program as a

model. It was later published as “VISTA as Experiential

Education,” in Experiential Education for Community

Development, in 1989. 

Nearly every day I run into someone who was a VISTA

with that program. They are running community

groups, holding elective office, teaching, organizing,

and generally making their mark on the world. I am

struck by the number of former VISTAs in some type

of community service work. Their stories are similar to

mine: VISTA changed the direction of their lives.

Coming to work at the Corporation for National and

Community Service in 1998 was the culmination of my

VISTA journey that began in the early 1970s. Becoming

the Wisconsin State Director was like coming home. 

I tell people that this is the job I was meant to have.

I tell people that

this is the job 

I was meant 

to have.

Linda A. Sunde, today
While I was in college, the idea of VISTA service was

always in the back of my mind, but I never followed

through. Instead, as I prepared to graduate, I sent

out over 100 resumes. I didn’t get one interview!

Finally, I decided to give VISTA a shot. That decision

changed my life. VISTA Poster

in

Directions

Life

n August 1977, VISTA offered me a position

with the Atlanta Youth Development Center for

male adjudicated delinquent youth. The boys at

the development center were there for transgressions

ranging from shoplifting to assault. Most came from

broken homes. The Center housed children as young as

eight and even had lockdown units for those who had

committed more serious offenses. I accepted their offer.

All new VISTAs placed in the state attended a training

session on an island off Georgia’s coast. I vividly

remember one activity called Mutts and Lipps. While 

I didn’t understand how to do it, somehow I loved it!

Years later, I realized why. It was experiential education,

a teaching style based on reflection and critical analysis

of experiences. The activity stimulated and challenged

me to look at myself and learn from my experience.

The roots of my love for training began at that

moment. The experience I got through the youth

development center was going to help it grow. 

The Center was there to provide structure, limits, and

love for the kids. Along with another VISTA, Tom

Seely, my mission was to create a volunteer program 

to provide positive role models for the boys. We

brainstormed, learned about the needs of volunteers,

and how to train and recruit volunteers. We were

determined to find people who would serve as positive

role models for these troubled youth. We sought adults

who had a passion for children and would help build

their self-esteem. Tom and I went into the community

to enlist volunteers, male and female, from all over

Atlanta. 

Over the course of the year, we created a volunteer

department with a strong training program and a

dedicated core of volunteers who spent time with the

youth. We created a manual that explained the Center’s

rules and guidelines, and provided tips for working

with children. We also implemented training sessions

for skills, such as effective listening. The volunteers

spent time with the kids, provided a positive role 

27

By Hope Horowitz—VISTA, 1977-1978, Atlanta, Ga.

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

I
28 VISTA ... In Service to America

model, gave them individualized

attention and took part in activities

with them like reading, playing games,

helping with homework, and sports. 

It was not easy and sometimes the

frustration of reality reared its ugly

head. We were unsure if there would

really be a long-term impact on the

kids. We wondered if we were really

making a difference in their lives.

Would they return to the same

negative influences at home? Would

they return to their deviant behavior?

But with determination, perseverance,

and dedication, we supported each

other and a strong, vibrant volunteer program was 

in place by the end of our year. We had developed

personal relationships with many of the kids by visiting

the units and engaging in activities with them. For the

volunteers, making a difference could

be as simple as having a child smile

or say thank you! The consistent

visits and relationships with positive

adult role models at least mattered

while the kids were at the Atlanta

Youth Development Center. Making 

a difference came in small ways and

we learned to appreciate these small

changes. 

The VISTAs also supported and

relied on each other because money

was always tight. In order to have a

social life, we even volunteered for

fun. The beautiful Fox Theatre in

Atlanta always needed help, so a group of VISTAs

volunteered as ushers on a regular basis. We were

rewarded with a year of free cultural experiences

ranging from The Rolling Stones to ballet and opera.

We missed our families, and sometimes doubted

ourselves, but underlying all that was our work as

VISTAs, our commitment to making a difference. We

were all patriotic. Serving our country was important to

us. So we worked to make it a better place. If we could

change just one life it would help make our country,

and the world, stronger.

As if that weren’t enough, midway through my VISTA

appointment at the development center, I started

volunteering as an advisor for the B’nai B’rith Youth

Organization, a Jewish group for teens in grades 9-12,

but at the opposite end of the spectrum from the Youth

Development Center. While the Center had mostly

black kids from broken homes, the youth from the

B’nai B’rith organization were Jewish teens from

healthier, supportive environments. Imagine my

surprise when I discovered very little difference

between the groups. I learned that no matter where 

VISTA touches

the heart and

soul of those who

serve and I will

never forget the

impact that one

year had on my

entire life ...

Hope Horowitz and Tom Seeley, 1978
29

you are, adolescents experience the same trials growing

up, such as self identity, sexuality issues, and

apprehension about the future. This allowed me to

implement a lot of the strategies I learned through the

Youth Development Center with the Jewish youth

organization.

My strategies impressed the B’nai B’rith Youth

Organization so much that they asked me to teach

leadership training at the International Leadership

Training Conference—a prestigious training for the 

top 200 B’nai B’rith Youth Organization

leaders from around the world—upon

completion of my one year VISTA

assignment. It was an opportunity I

couldn’t pass up. My VISTA experience

seamlessly translated into the skills I taught

the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization leaders.

It prepared me to take what I learned

and teach it to others with real-world

examples. At the end of the

conference, they offered me a job

with the B’nai B’rith Youth

Organization in 

Michigan where I spent two years until my position

was eliminated.

The organization then provided a scholarship for me 

to obtain a Masters of Social Work (MSW) from the

University of Michigan. Two years later I relocated to

Allentown, Pa., where I spent the next 14 years with the

B’nai B’rith Youth Organization, the last eight years as

Assistant Director of the Jewish Community Center.

My VISTA training set me on my path to teach and

train others. My VISTA experience set me on my

career path and enabled me to gain invaluable

insights about myself, groups, and working

with communities. I hold my VISTA

experience so dear that I still keep a rock that

was part of an activity as a reminder of it.

VISTA touches the heart and soul of those

who serve, and I will never forget the

impact that one year had on my

entire life and the lives of the

youth we served.

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

Hope Horowitz, today

My husband, David, and I were the first VISTAs 

in Minnesota to meet and marry on the job. When 

we became VISTAs, however, we weren’t looking 

for romance.

VISTA Poster 

Unexpected

Romance

avid had already been on the job for six months

at United Handicapped Federation, a grassroots

action group serving the disabled community in

the Twin Cities. When I arrived that July morning in

1980, after the director introduced us, he asked David

to show me around the office. Right away, I thought

there was something special about David. Both of us

were shy, and it would take some time before we really

got to know each other.

Before our VISTA assignments, David had been an

accountant in St. Paul and I was an English teacher in

Minneapolis. Each of us had come to a point in our

lives and careers that we wanted to try something

different. Because we were both disabled, David with

MS and I with a hip injury that made walking difficult,

we knew our employment options might be somewhat

limited. Coincidentally, we were steered toward

VISTA—and the same job site—by vocational

counselors, who suggested that signing up as VISTAs

might be a good opportunity to use our skills in new

ways and also serve our country. 

It was an exciting time at the United Handicapped

Federation, and we loved the work. Although there

were (and are) always those who thought people with

disabilities ought to stay out of sight, members of the

Federation made a point of making noise. They formed

several committees to work on the most pressing issues

faced within the disabled community. The issues

included accessible transportation, building accessibility,

employment, health care, and aging. It was up to David,

me, and four other VISTA community organizers to

work behind the scenes with Federation members. 

We assisted them in a variety of ways, ever sensitive 

to the fact that disabled people, like so many minorities,

must not be lumped together into one group. Each is 

an individual, each with his or her own ideas. Conflicts

often arose about the best methods to achieve our

goals. Everyone agreed, however, that our first priority

was to educate the public. We wanted people to know

that the issues of the disabled were immediate and

urgent. And these issues could affect anyone at any age,

at any instant—a motorcyclist without a helmet suffers

brain damage after an accident, a factory worker loses a

31

By Liz Bryan—VISTA, 1980-1981, St. Paul, Minn.

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

D
32 VISTA ... In Service to America

limb to machinery, a child is paralyzed by a fall from 

a diving board, a senior citizen is blinded by macular

degeneration. 

We VISTAs helped Federation members organize

public demonstrations at the state capitol in St. Paul.

We prepared members for interviews with the media.

Not only did we alert the media to cover these events,

we also made sure that some of our Federation

members, with a little coaching from us, were readily

available for interviews and pictures, up close and

personal. One newspaper

photo showed a wheelchairbound citizen sitting in front

of the stairs to a public

building in mid-winter. The

image spoke volumes. A

television news crew truly

benefited the cause by

interviewing a man with a

speech impediment who was

turned down for a job despite

his fine qualifications. Such

publicity began to make a

difference. 

Meanwhile, as David and I

worked hard on the job at the

Federation, we began seeing

each other outside the office.

Unsure whether VISTA

staffers at the same job site

were supposed to date, we kept our romance 

under wraps.

In 1981, shortly before our VISTA terms concluded,

David and I surprised everyone at the office by

announcing that we had just been married. Once the 

news was out, we learned that we were the first VISTAs

in Minnesota to meet and marry on the job. To

celebrate this occasion, the state VISTA office held 

a reception in our honor. 

At the same time there was a personnel upheaval at 

the Federation. As soon as David completed his VISTA

commitment, the board at the Federation invited him

to take over as director of the organization. He

accepted. David supervised the staff, including the

other VISTAs, and as soon as my VISTA term ended,

I joined the Federation as

employment seminars

coordinator. We continued in

these positions for two more

years, always working toward

the primary goal of the

Federation: equal rights 

for the disabled.

Satisfied we were leaving the

organization in good hands,

David and I resigned from 

the United Handicapped

Federation in 1983 to find

new challenges. For three

years we ran our own small

bookstore until our business

failed. David went to work at

another local bookstore, and 

I was hired to direct

recruitment for a large

research project in the Psychology Department at the

University of Minnesota. 

The years passed and our VISTA experience faded into

the past, remembered with fondness but no longer part

of our everyday thoughts.

Liz and David Bryan, 1980s
33

Then in 1998, David died of cancer. At

his memorial service, several people

spoke of the great service he had

rendered to the disabled community

over the years, and the memories

came flooding back. I thought of how

David and I had met as VISTAs at the

Federation and worked together for

common goals.

David and I never expected our terms

as VISTAs to be a piece of cake—and

they weren’t. Society often resists

change and at times we found ourselves in the midst 

of turmoil. Any frustrations we felt, however, were far

outweighed by our sense of satisfaction when we noted

concrete evidence of change. During our VISTA terms,

architects and contractors began to seek out Federation

members for advice on how to reshape entrances into

buildings, widen restroom doors, and remove barriers

from public grounds. 

Later, as we watched the development and

implementation of a vastly improved metropolitan

transit system that finally accommodated people with

disabilities, we remembered all the Federation 

members in wheelchairs gathered in

front of the state capitol. “We Will

Ride!” said their placards. And we

were elated when we learned that an

employer decided to hire one of our

members on the spot—a woman with

cerebral palsy—after he heard her

eloquent description of the subtle

discrimination she had faced when

seeking a job.

Although the United Handicapped

Federation disbanded in the mid-1990s,

there will probably always be a need for advocacy for

those in the disabled community whose quality of life

is threatened. And 25 years later, I recall with much joy

how deeply David and I savored our

VISTA experience at the

Federation. I wish that every

citizen could experience a

similar opportunity to

serve our country. In some

small way, I think David

and I made a difference.

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

Liz Bryan, today

Society often

resists change

and at times we

found ourselves 

in the midst 

of turmoil.
VISTA Poster

Reality Declared

already knew what it was like to live in the

Midtown neighborhood of Milwaukee because I

was a lifelong resident. The local economy and

residents suffered the financial backlash common in

poverty-stricken areas—redlined financial products,

loans and insurance at unreasonable rates, unfair retail

pricing structures, no local bank branches, and

businesses that crumbled and closed. 

As a board member of the Midtown Neighborhood

Association, we had identified the lack of banking

resources as a key element in the decline of our

neighborhood. The message was clear. Institutions were

not investing in the neighborhoods around me and

opportunities commonly available elsewhere were pipe

dreams. Without community resources, Midtown

would be left further behind. My neighborhood group

realized the community needed a local financial

institution to provide a foundation on which to build 

a stable future. 

So the association board asked that I become a VISTA

and organize a financial empowerment initiative.

When I was sworn in, I saw a VISTA poster that aptly

defined my stewardship. It declared “We will either

find a way, or make one,” and making a way became

my personal mantra. Our project was to establish the

Cream City Community Development Credit Union to

offer basic banking, as well as loans, for projects that

created jobs, cultivated local businesses, and contributed

to the development of Milwaukee’s inner city.

It took a lot of hard work to get Cream City going

because we had to start from scratch. We didn’t have

staplers, pens, or paper clips, which really didn’t matter

because we didn’t have paper or desks, either.

Obviously, the first thing we had to do was equip

ourselves, so we begged, borrowed, and negotiated rock

bottom prices for everything. We got a huge boost from

a relocating hospital, which supplied a lot of the

furniture we needed, while other organizations donated

the necessary supplies. My colleagues and I put in the 

34 VISTA ... In Service to America

By Rep. Gwendolynne Moore—VISTA, 1981-1984, Milwaukee, Wis.

As a resident of a poor, inner-city environment with a

predominantly minority population, you can either live

the reality that there’s little you can do about it or

you can declare what your reality will be and make it

happen. As a VISTA volunteer, my colleagues and I

chose to create a new reality.

I
35

time by working almost every night, weekend,

and holiday. 

In early November of my first year, we learned about 

a federal government loan we could get that would

provide some operating capital. The only problem was

that the November 30 application deadline was less

than a month away. Excited by the prospect of funding,

we worked day and night pulling together the

necessary documentation and forms. Finally, that

Thanksgiving, we gathered around my dining room

table to put the finishing touches on the business plan

and application between bites of turkey and cranberry

sauce. It’s still one of my fondest holiday memories

because our diligence paid off—we got the 

$10,000 capitalization loan. 

We got the loan, but we were just getting started. To

prove the viability of the institution, we had to prove

that it would be used by the residents of the

community. By going door-to-door, we got residents 

to pledge to open an account with us. The

minimum account opening balance

had to be $50, which was a 

lot of money for a community where

the majority of people were on

welfare. But we got enough to prove

that Cream City would be a valued

community commodity.

We also had to put together

committees and generate support

from professionals willing to

volunteer their time. It was hard, but

we finally opened Cream City’s doors,

and, while it certainly didn’t happen

overnight, I was mesmerized by the effect it had on the

community. It enabled people to start thinking about

building assets instead of just making ends meet.

People could now invest in the community by getting a

home or small business loan, then give back to the

community by hiring residents or

improving their small part of the

neighborhood. 

The community flourished and

buzzed with activity as our service

became contagious. There was a local

bar and grill called the Interlude

where we often gathered to discuss

our next course of action. By publicly

holding meetings and discussions,

people saw what we did and either

wanted to be a part of it or take on

projects of their own. Groups formed

that eventually brought in a coin-operated laundry and

a health clinic. This all led to housing development and

an improved quality of life. Other businesses followed,

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

“We will either

find a way, or

make one,” and

making a way

became my 

personal mantra.

Gwendolynne Moore, 1980s
36 VISTA ... In Service to America

the community developed a new pride, and the

neighborhood experienced a renaissance.

Too many people believe that where you start out

dictates where you end up. That didn’t happen to me,

and it shouldn’t happen to anyone. VISTA, or what’s

now known as AmeriCorps*VISTA, is what made the

difference for me and the community where I grew up.

Now, more than 20 years later, the Midtown area is

thriving, growing, and proud. And it was the Cream

City Federal Credit Union that led the way for this poor

inner-city community to take control of its destiny.

Cream City eventually morphed into another

institution, and today my family still does its 

banking there.

Through my VISTA experience, I learned the value of

self-help, coalition building, interracial cooperation, and

mobilization. I gained self-confidence, patience, and

faith, as well as financial, networking, and

organizational skills. Above all, I realized that great

things can be accomplished with the collective strength

of community, thus strengthening my commitment to

community service. Now I serve on the Financial

Services Committee in the U.S. House of

Representatives and have the opportunity to make a

direct impact on the conditions I observed during my

service. Without my VISTA service, I doubt I would

have been able to attain this position.

But my VISTA service wasn’t about empowering me, it

was about empowering the people and the community.

For example, my service had a marked effect on my

daughter, Jessalynne, and my other two children. I took

them with me to my meetings, so they grew up seeing

and hearing and learning what it takes to make the

world a better place just a little bit at a time. That’s

where my legacy intermingles with VISTA’s because

Jessalynne also joined VISTA to serve homeless

children, and she did a fantastic job. But that is her

story to tell, not mine. 

My VISTA legacy is that through service, I left a

footprint. Jessalynne left another and thousands of

other VISTAs left theirs. Given that, we are not VISTA’s

legacy of service. Projects like Cream City Community

Development Credit Union serve as that legacy. Why?

Because they blaze the trail that others will follow. And

that trail leads the way out of poverty.

U.S. Rep. Gwendolynne Moore, today
“Not in My Back Yard.” That was the battle cry 

among my neighbors when, as a real estate broker, 

I helped locate a medium-security prison complex in

Pacific, Missouri. That didn’t exactly endear me to 

the community. 

VISTA Poster 

y

Back Yard

ut because I was instrumental in bringing

Missouri Eastern Correctional Center to the

area, I wanted to help make it the best prison 

in Missouri. So when it finally opened and advertised

for a VISTA to manage Volunteer in Corrections,

a volunteer program designed to encourage offenders

to take responsibility for their actions, I saw it as a

great opportunity. I applied and was accepted.

Most of the prison staff was new to corrections when it

opened, so we all had a lot to learn. Originally, the

prison housed about 1,000 inmates in single occupancy

cells. The inmates were high-medium security risks.

When I could, I even assisted the new prison staff as

an unofficial correction officer, filling in when an

absence occurred. My role was to recruit, train, and

supervise new community volunteers who would steer

offenders toward success and focus on accountability,

protection of the community, and competency

development. I also protected volunteers from

prisoners intent on preying on the sympathy of wellmeaning volunteers. I was popular among the inmates 

because they recognized the value of the Volunteer in

Corrections program. 

Most of my volunteers came from interested church

groups. I tried to recruit people who would serve the

inmates’ needs and help them improve themselves. One

of those needs, surprisingly, included a bridge group.

There was a group of prisoners who played bridge in

their spare time, so I asked an outside bridge group to

join them. They brought their excellent card talent to

the prisoners and everyone had a great time. Another

activity among inmates was called “talking books,” in

which inmates would tape record books for the blind. 

A few volunteers came to assist and provide advice in

their efforts.

My VISTA work got a big boost through Prison

Fellowship, a group developed by Charles “Chuck”

Colson, a man who worked for President Nixon. In

1974 Chuck entered a guilty plea to Watergate-related

charges and served time in prison. While incarcerated,

he found religion and founded Prison Fellowship in

1976. In collaboration with all religions, Prison

Fellowship has become the world’s largest outreach to

37

By George D. Weber—VISTA, 1982-1984, Pacific, Mo.

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

B
38 VISTA ... In Service to America

prisoners, crime victims, and their families. The

Fellowship movement has built a working relationship

with more than 40,000 prison ministry volunteers.

Since most of my volunteers came from religious

organizations, his influence helped my recruiting

efforts. He even honored us by making a personal

appearance at the prison to recognize the inmates and

volunteers for their good work.

As a Catholic, I noticed the Catholic faith was not

heavily represented in the prison’s faith-based

programs, so I made contact with Archbishop John

May of St. Louis. He responded by calling on a group 

of Catholics who became active. After a year of work,

the Archbishop visited and said Mass in our chapel for

interested prisoners and volunteers. We became close

friends for the effort.

Of the 750 or so religious volunteers, I believe the

Nation of Islam was the most constructive in their

work. Their message was not tilted toward sorrow for

the situation in which the inmates found themselves,

but geared to betterment by being responsible for each

individual’s actions. 

Influenced by Volunteer in Corrections programs,

prisoners began proposing constructive programs of

their own. The

inmates proposed

a “Scared

Straight”

type of program called “Youth Awareness.” Developed

by the prisoners and approved by the administration, it

involved 12 to 15 inmates who used their experiences

to try to “scare straight” young offenders. The chairman

of the group was doing 25 life terms and the others

were almost as bad, so they had a lot to offer. During

the program, they scared the kids pretty good. The only

thing I can say with certainty is the inmates got the

kids’ attention. I hope none of those kids fell into a life

of crime after that.

During my VISTA service, the prison administration

nominated me for two volunteer awards and the

United Way and the JC Penney Group recognized our

work. I served for two one-year terms as a VISTA and

when the program was not extended, I was hired as a

State Corrections Officer, where I stayed until I retired. 

So here I am, 80 years old and still not finished.

Following retirement, I got involved in politics again (I

was a Missouri State Representative in the mid-sixties),

believing I could help in other ways. I ran for several

state and federal offices between 1996 and 2004. More

recently, AmeriCorps asked me to be a district

“Community Outreach Representative,” working career

days at St. Louis area universities. At St. Louis

University and Washington University, I distributed

about 3,000 pieces of literature. 

I credit VISTA with a lot of things. Through their

efforts, we turned a “Not in my backyard” battle cry

into a community of volunteers willing to help

convicted criminals right in their backyard. And we

saw results—communities that help rather than turn a

blind eye toward issues behind prison walls, a prison

where criminals learn to hold themselves accountable

for their actions, and prisoners who reach out to help

the community. If VISTA service can do this in my

backyard, I think it can help in anyone’s backyard.

George D. Weber, 1980s
As a small child, Alice had been sexually abused by her

father. By age 16, she had become a heroin addict.

“Shooting up,” she said, “was the only way I knew

how to dull the pain and shame of living at home.” 

VISTA Poster

Shooting Up

lice went to Marathon House, a two-year

residential program in Providence, R.I.,

designed to help first-time substance abuse

offenders learn how to stay free of controlled

substances. It was then Alice became part of my life 

as my closest colleague.

Through her experience at Marathon House, Alice

gained self-esteem, returned to school, and earned her

high school equivalency diploma. By the time I arrived

there as a VISTA volunteer, she worked part-time in the

Marathon House central office. My time at Marathon

House exposed me to many experiences and

individuals that had not been a part of my life. 

And although Alice did not have the educational

background that I was fortunate to obtain through

college, she taught me quite a bit about living through

difficult times, fighting for a better life, and struggling

to make ends meet while supporting a small child as a

single parent.

I was extremely fortunate to be able to work with a

bright, energetic, idealistic, and optimistic group of

people who believed in the potential of every human

being and worked to ensure that those brave enough to

stick to the program were given a second lease on life.

The Marathon House program was rigorous—

individuals had to work or go to school, attend a

number of therapy sessions each week, stay drug-free,

commit to changing their destructive behaviors, try to

rebuild relationships with family, and plan for life after

they graduated from the program. More importantly, if

they failed the program, they went to jail.

My one-year assignment at Marathon House opened

my eyes. The experience made me realize that I really

could “make a difference.” Through my VISTA

appointment as a research assistant, I developed an

Employee Assistance Program to help coach employees

of the greater Providence area who either had a

substance abuse problem or had a relative with this

problem. The program provided counseling services,

confidential assessments and referrals to community

providers, in addition to a supportive environment. I

also succeeded in evaluating the benefit of the program

by developing and conducting a mail survey with

program participants, both drop outs and graduates.

39

By Donna Shapiro Rabiner—VISTA, 1982-1983, Providence, R.I.

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

A
40 VISTA ... In Service to America

Respondents were one of two types of individuals—

dropouts who disliked the program and did not

graduate (and were happy to tell us their stories 

about that!) or graduates who went on to lead healthy,

productive lives. 

Although I was able to help Marathon House evaluate

its program, I had a long way to go before I could

provide the agency with a rigorous assessment of the

program’s strengths and weaknesses. Without

additional training, I could only provide Marathon

House and other non-profit agencies with information

that would partially help improve their programs. So I

went to graduate school at Duke University and earned

a master’s degree in Health Administration and a

doctorate in Health Policy and Administration. 

I learned how to balance a budget, deal with personnel

issues, handle complex financial matters, evaluate the

supply/demand for services, delve into health law, and

learn how to plan and develop new health programs. I

also learned that I did not want to work in a for-profit

health care setting given my values, my VISTA

experience at Marathon House, and the tremendous

satisfaction that I obtained from helping people during

a difficult time in their lives.

After my years at Duke, I continued to work in the

health field. I held several positions at a non-profit

health maintenance organization, and now I’m a senior

researcher at RTI International, where I have become

fascinated with the role and importance of volunteering

in later life. 

During the past five years, I have evaluated many

programs funded by the Corporation for National and

Community Service, including the Senior Companion

Program and the Experience Corps for Independent

Living Initiative. In addition, I have analyzed data from

AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps

(AmeriCorps*NCCC) members. It was very interesting

to compare my reasons for joining VISTA in 1982 with

those of volunteers who joined the AmeriCorps

program in 2000.

It was a pleasure and a delight to work with the

Corporation—the very same agency (under its 

early aegis of ACTION) that helped me grow up and

determine my life’s work. In the years to come, I will

continue to use my skills and training from both my

schooling and my empowering experience as a VISTA

volunteer to help serve others, to assess the impact 

of community-based programs on the health and 

well-being of volunteers, clients, and communities 

being served, and to encourage others to serve in 

a similar way. 

My first year out of college as a VISTA volunteer

helped shape who I am as an adult. VISTA helped me

recognize that I wanted to focus my life on serving

others and gave me the confidence to pursue a career

in community-based evaluation research, a path that

has been rewarding, extremely satisfying, and especially

meaningful for me, and, I believe, to others. Donna Shapiro Rabiner, Today

VISTA Poster

y teaching technical, communications, and

networking skills to those who would never get

a chance to rebuild their self-confidence and

community infrastructures, AmeriCorps*VISTA serves

as a “mender” of the breach in our nation’s safety net. 

I congratulate AmeriCorps*VISTA on 40 years of

excellence in mentoring and cultivating the dormant

energies and aspirations inside America’s grass-root

organizations.

I am the eldest of eight children, and as a child 

I excelled in school and athletics. But because of 

family structural breakdowns, parental alcoholism,

molestation, and physical abuse, I lost my edge,

dropped out of high school, and joined the 

U.S. Army in 1970 at age 17.

By 1974, I was a 21-year-old African-American male,

with a family of four, no education, and no clear career

path. What was I going to do? How could I take care of

my family? I eventually had to get on welfare with my

family, but I was trying to find a way to get ahead. This

time in my life was the beginning of more than 15

years of crisscrossing the country in search of better

work, education, and career opportunities to help me

take care of my family.

In 1990, I ended up back in Detroit as a community

outreach coordinator at Operation Get Down, a 

grass-roots Pan-African social service agency, where 

I had earned a GED (general equivalency diploma) 

in 1975. In addition to GED assistance, Operation 

Get Down identifies self-help solutions in the Detroit

community, offers shelter and support to the homeless,

designs youth development programs, and coordinates

family emergency services. After a year at Operation

Get Down, I became a VISTA member at the

organization’s Warming Center, where homeless 

clients were served a hot meal and given sleeping

accommodations for the night.

Between 1990 and 1993, at least 75,000 people had

been cut from the welfare roles, and another 50,000

had been released from mental hospitals throughout

Michigan. These two acts alone swelled the population

of homeless residents in Detroit to an estimated 10,000.

One of my VISTA duties was to drive a van around

town to pick up homeless adults and children off the

42 VISTA ... In Service to America

By Ray Wright—VISTA, 1990-1993, Detroit, Mich.

Through the AmeriCorps*VISTA program, I experienced

life-changing events. For that I am grateful. In fact,

I believe I’m living testimony to AmeriCorps*VISTA’s

national importance and continued necessity. 

JustGetting Warmed Up

B
43

streets and transport them to our

warming facility when freezing

wintertime temperatures hit the

area. By the second year of

Operation Get Down’s expanded

city-wide Warming Center program,

metro Detroit residents were

calling us “The Brothers 

in the Vans.”

Richard Trice, Operation

Get Down’s Deputy

Director and my VISTA

supervisor, had a vision

to take helping the

homeless to an

unprecedented level.

He wanted to create 

a place where homeless clients could receive

comprehensive services 24 hours a day, rebuilding the

community “one life at a time.” Thus, Nia House was

established, and I was reassigned there through the

VISTA program as a residential

liaison and advocate for residents’

rights. 

At Nia House (Nia means purpose

in Swahili), the largest transitional

housing unit in Michigan at that

time, we helped rebuild lives from

the ground up, but this was no free

ride. Residents had to clean their

rooms, bathe daily, and perform

duties around the house, such as

painting, cutting grass, plastering,

sweeping, mopping, and helping prepare meals. The

community gained a sense of pride and respect for the

Nia House residents, who had found something worth

living for—self-respect.

Counselors admitted residents into Alcoholics

Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous programs, sent

qualified residents to GED programs, helped them with

medical problems, and helped them find employment.

Nia House fed 144 residents, both men and women,

daily. Through my AmeriCorps*VISTA tenure, I

witnessed Operation Get Down saving hundreds, if 

not thousands, of lives. We found people under bridges

and in hallways; we picked up women and children

freezing in the dead of winter, and men and women

decimated by drug use. We saved victims of domestic

violence by securing warm, safe surroundings by

making sure they got help to realign their lives,

and by giving them a hot meal.

Years later, it is humbling to encounter former

residents of Nia House walking downtown, or at the

bus stop, or in a Westside market, and hear them say,

“Thank you, Brother Wright. The Nia House experience

helped save my life.” 

The Nia House helped change the way many politicians

viewed the homeless problem in Michigan and

revitalized efforts against

homelessness. Twelve years later, it

has helped reduce the number of

Detroit’s homeless by half. 

Although I left Nia House and

VISTA in 1993, I am still actively

involved in grass-roots community

development and urban design

activities. Following the death of

my 22-year-old daughter in 1998,

I wanted to create a program to help

children combat drug abuse and child molestation. So 

I engaged the same networking and communications

skills that I used as an AmeriCorps*VISTA member to

start the Just Aim Motivate and Move (JAMM) Project,

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

Ray Wright, 1990s

... I witnessed

Operation Get

Down saving 

hundreds, if not

thousands, of lives.
44 VISTA ... In Service to America

which features an after-school and summer program

where inner-city youth learn computer technology and

engage in physical activity, cultural enrichment, and

economic enrichment education. 

The AmeriCorps program at Oakland University in

Pontiac, Mich., has been a strong partner of the JAMM

mission and its projects. During the past seven years,

the AmeriCorps Oakland has helped recruit hundreds

of manpower hours for our JAMM Session, an annual

fundraiser that involves having fun through games and

lots of showmanship on the basketball court.

This past December, the JAMM Project was honored 

at the 10-year celebration of AmeriCorps Oakland.

Through the JAMM Project, AmeriCorps Oakland has

served thousands of youth and their parents across 

the Pontiac and metro Detroit area. 

All of these can be traced back to 1991 when VISTA

helped train me and set the path for me to acquire

cross networking experiences over the years. 

Thank you, AmeriCorps*VISTA. I hope there will 

be many more decades of unmatched service to this

great nation.

Ray Wright, today
I’m a writer, and reading is one of my favorite

activities. I was the kid whose nose was always 

in a book as my parents drove by fabulous scenery 

on family vacations, begging me to look. Reading 

has always been my escape, my reward when my 

work is done. VISTA Poster

Storys the Thing

o when I joined VISTA, I chose to work in

literacy. I couldn’t imagine living without

reading, not just for pleasure but also simply to

function in society. Then I met intelligent, amazingly

resourceful people like Tom.

Tom was a long-distance truck driver, and he couldn’t

read. His wife of 20 years didn’t know; she planned all

his routes for him so he would have more time to relax

when he was home. When she went on trips with him,

she navigated. 

Then one time Tom got lost—I don’t remember in

which city. He panicked—maybe it was the traffic or

the tons of signs that he couldn’t understand—and he

turned the wrong way down a one-way street. He stood

on the brake when he realized his mistake.

A policeman saw what he’d done and pulled up beside

him. He didn’t write a ticket. He gave Tom directions

and sent him on his way.

After that, Tom called Reading Connections, a nonprofit

adult literacy program in Greensboro, N.C. He’d heard

about it though his church. There had been an

announcement to recruit volunteer tutors. He was

matched with a tutor (not from his church, because he

didn’t want anyone to know) and started meeting as

often as his travel schedule allowed. He did workbook

exercises while on the road.

Tom didn’t have a learning disability, as so many adults

who have trouble with reading do. Nationally, an

estimated one in five adults struggle with the most

basic literacy tasks. Tom had just fallen behind one year

in school and never caught up. He was a nice kid; the

teachers kept passing him. As an adult, he’d always

been a reliable worker, a quick study. It was the same

story when he started learning to read.

After about six months, a strange thing started

happening: words began leaping out at him from street

signs, billboards, and buildings. Before, the world had

been composed of colors and shapes. Now it spoke to

45

By Quinn Dalton—AmeriCorps*VISTA, 1994-1995, Greensboro, N.C.

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

S
46 VISTA ... In Service to America

him everywhere he looked. It was almost frightening,

this switch that had flipped in his brain, but he loved it.

He couldn’t believe how much he’d missed; he said he

felt he’d spend the rest of his life just catching up.

There are so many inspiring stories like Tom’s that I

came to know during my year as a VISTA: the woman

who got tired of having other people writing her checks

for her; the warehouse worker who kept getting fired

for not filling out paperwork. 

It wasn’t hard to love being part of an organization that

had such a huge and meaningful impact on people’s

lives. And it was especially gratifying to work in

Greensboro, a town I thought I’d live in for just the two

years it would take me to complete a graduate degree.

When I applied to VISTA, I said on my application that

I’d go anywhere they wanted to place me, because I

thought I needed to experience another part of the

country. It turned out I found that other part of the

country six blocks away from my student apartment. I

met people I never would have met in my safe, simple

academic world. And I don’t just mean people like

Tom, but also people who

cared enough to volunteer, and

business leaders who

understood that by investing

in Reading Connections, they

were investing not only in

improving workers’ skills and

their quality of life, but also in

the health of our community.

I served with VISTA from

1994-1995 as Reading

Connections’ community

awareness coordinator. Then 

I stayed on part time for

another year, continuing to

help with awareness and fundraising. The experience

helped me to develop so many useful skills, which

prepared me for later work in public relations as well

as in writing (I am the author of a novel, High Strung,

and a story collection, Bulletproof Girl, which was

released in April 2005; both from imprints of Simon 

& Schuster). At Reading Connections, I learned how to

write a press release and to pitch media for coverage of

events and agency successes. I learned how to plan

fundraising events, from invitations to table

arrangements. 

I learned how to speak in front of many kinds of

groups, tailoring our message to their interests. I

learned how to write grants, and in one year helped to

raise $55,000, nearly half of Reading Connections’

operating expenses at the time.

But most importantly, I learned about the courage it

took for adults who had lived with the secret handicap

of illiteracy to seek help, the commitment it took for

them to improve their skills when they were already

stretched between work and family, and the joy of

accomplishment when they began to reach their

goals—learning how to manage their own bank

accounts, to fill out job paperwork, to read stories to

their children. Really, the kinds of things most of us 

do every day without thinking about it.

When the students were honored at our annual awards

dinner, which was held in the spring toward the end of

my VISTA year, I can’t tell you how proud I was of

them and of myself for just knowing them. Their

stories had galvanized a part of our community, and 

10 years later, Reading Connections continues to serve

hundreds of students every year. In the end, I learned

that what I loved best about reading—the story—is the

most important thing to all of us. 

Quinn Dalton, today
My life changed completely on August 9, 1987. That

day, after 15 years of dairy farming, I was loading

bales of hay onto a truck. A bale fell from the top 

of the haystack and struck me on the head, which

severed my spinal cord between the fourth and fifth

cervical vertebrae in my neck. I was paralyzed from 

the neck down.

VISTA Poster

Bright Side

Wheelchair

fter two weeks in intensive care and six months

in a rehabilitation unit, I returned home on

January 10, 1988, with very little arm

movement and no hand movement. Life would never

be the same for my wife, Faustine, my son, Dustin, and

me. We were scared to death about how to deal with

my physical disability and unemployment.

I soon realized I must carve out a new life for myself

and my young family. Being home from the hospital

and enjoying the company and assistance of my

community helped change my attitude toward the

future. My friends and neighbors provided us with help

and financial support, which I soon realized I could

never repay. I promised to do anything I could to help

give back to my community in any way.

I no longer had the physical ability to do farm labor on

my in-laws’ dairy farm. But I was given the opportunity

to attend college at Utah State University, which is not

too far from my home in Preston, Idaho, by the Idaho

Vocational Rehabilitation program. The program

provided me with the financial assistance to earn a

degree and pursue employment that I would be able to

do. It took four and a half years to graduate, an

accomplishment I’m very proud of. 

After graduating from Utah State University with a

Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Business, I

interviewed with several companies but didn’t receive

an offer. A friend encouraged me to check into a

position as an Outreach Specialist with OPTIONS for

Independence, northern Utah’s Center for Independent

Living. I got an interview, was offered the position and

realized that my life would change again, this time in a

very positive manner. 

I served two years as an Outreach Specialist and

AmeriCorps*VISTA member. During that time I

became passionate about advocating for people with

disabilities, realizing there were many disability issues

that had direct influence on the quality of life of people

47

By Gordon Richins—AmeriCorps*VISTA, 1994-1996, Logan, Utah

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

of a

A
48 VISTA ... In Service to America

with disabilities. I soon realized I had joined an

organization that generated a very positive outlook on

life with a disability instead of the negative outlook of

“you can’t do this or you won’t be able

to do that.”

Under Helen Roth’s direction,

my two years with OPTIONS for

Independence was very busy and

productive. It was a time of personal

growth as my outlook on life changed dramatically.

People with disabilities deal with quality-of-life issues

that the rest of America takes for granted. I attended

many community activities, trainings, and statewide

systems change projects that allowed me to address

those issues directly. I also joined three national groups

that advocate for individuals with disabilities, allowing

me to better represent Utah and my friends and family.

My involvement resulted in community improvements,

including accessibility to transportation and housing. 

One of my projects was an information booklet that

provided community contact information for

individuals with a disability. It answered the many

questions I had when I left the hospital. The booklet

was shared throughout northern Utah and mailed out

to consumers statewide as requested. Another

was the development of a community

advocacy group to address community

issues, such as those addressed in the

Americans with Disabilities Act. The group,

Concerned Citizens with Disabilities

Coalition, is still active today, 10 years

after its development. 

I also graduated from Partners 

in Policy Making, a statewide

advocacy program designed 

to develop community

advocates willing to engage in community systems

change that enhance the quality of life for people with

disabilities. Being a driving force in this community

enhancement is very gratifying. 

I have very fond memories of people

I met, places I went and the

community changes I was part of

during my VISTA position. Giving

back to my community gave me a new

sense of worth after becoming an individual with a

serious physical disability, quadriplegia. 

As I neared the end of my two years, I realized I 

had changed as a person, I could see my community

changing, and I felt good about myself and my

involvement in the process. As I worked on a resume 

to pursue future employment, my Bachelor of Science

degree now had a lot of experience to go with it. I had

also gained a level of confidence I had never had

before. I knew I could go to work somewhere, make a

difference, and pay my own bills. I even paid off my

student loans with the AmeriCorps Education Award

and was able to utilize the remainder of my tuition

dollars for additional college courses. 

Life is now totally different than my 15 years

as a dairy farmer. I look at life differently

and know the future will be just as positive

as the last two years have been. My 

new friends are always positive and this

seems to have rubbed off on me. I am

once again happy; I’m repaying my

community and do not have the level 

of depression I experienced after 

my accident. I’m too busy to sit

around and feel sorry for

myself. Life is good again.

Gordon Richins, today

Life is 

good again.
The year I spent as an AmeriCorps*VISTA was one of

the most definitive moments of my life. At the time 

I was accepted for service, I faced the prospect of

graduating from college with little to no direction 

for the future. VISTA Poster

y family disagreed with my willingness to take

a year off from college and put my graduation

on hold, but I was convinced it was the right

thing to do. Looking back, I can honestly say the

decision to commit to service was my first real act of

independence. And it was absolutely the right thing to do.

From August 1997 to August 1998, I worked with the

Young Scholars Liberty Partnerships Program at Utica

College in Utica, N.Y. The Young Scholars partnerships

program is a collaborative project between Utica College

and the Utica City School District, whose goal is to

meet the challenge of motivating teenage students to

stay in school, earn a New York State Regents Diploma,

and pursue post-secondary education. At Utica College,

I served the program as a tutor. AmeriCorps*VISTA

stationed me at a high school site full time to expand

program services for a diverse population of urban youth.

The challenge during my year of service was

establishing a strong community-service and servicelearning component for Young Scholars students.

Throughout the school year, I worked with another

AmeriCorps*VISTA to coordinate various community

service projects for Young Scholars students. We

discovered that involving students in their community

gave them a sense of pride in it. This sense of pride

spilled over into students’ school communities and was

reflected in their approach to schoolwork. 

Make a Difference Day in 1997 was one of several

memorable projects. Many of our students lived in

Cornhill, an economically depressed neighborhood.

Participating in the Cornhill Cleanup Project, sponsored

by the Cornhill Coalition of Block Associations, gave

students the chance to do something to help their own

community. Despite the rain and cold, students worked

with other community members to clean up trash on

the streets. It also gave them a firsthand look at the

problem of litter and the opportunity to take ownership

over the place they called home. 

Their service focused on something different during a

project at Adrean Terrace, a municipal housing project.

Joining with AmeriCorps*VISTAs and AmeriCorps

members from other areas, students collected discarded

books from the Utica Public Library to create a small

library at the housing project. By bringing books into

49

By John D. Ossowski—AmeriCorps*VISTA, 1997-1998, Utica, N.Y.

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

a

estimony

Legacy of Service

M
50 VISTA ... In Service to America

their neighborhood, making written material more

accessible to their neighbors, students encouraged

literacy. Again, as with the neighborhood clean-up

project, students had the

opportunity to improve their

immediate community.

As a long-term project, we helped

organize a soda can tab drive.

Taking our cue from an article in a

service organization’s magazine, we

challenged students to see how

many tabs they could collect for

recycling to benefit the Shriners Children’s Hospitals.

This project focused on “kids helping kids.” At the end

of the year, we turned the project into a miniature math

lesson to calculate the number of tabs collected. Rather

than take on the cumbersome task of counting the

mountain of can tabs, we designed a solution involving

volume. Students needed to determine the approximate

number of can tabs that would fit into a cubic inch.

They then needed to calculate the volume of the

receptacle holding the tabs (in terms of cubic inches).

This number was multiplied by the number of can tabs

per cubic inch and it was found that students had

amassed more than 88,000 can tabs in one year’s time. 

Since the implementation of the program’s community

service component through AmeriCorps*VISTA, Young

Scholars students have collectively logged thousands of

service hours investing in their

communities. Students in junior

high are now required to complete

15 hours of community service a

year, with those at the high school

level expected to finish 30 hours. In

addition, the tradition of doing

community service in our students’

neighborhoods has been expanded.

For example, several times a year, Young Scholars

students volunteer at a local nursing home, assisting

with special events as wait staff for residents and 

their families. 

Recently, students painted a mural in a playground

frequented by Young Scholars students and their

families. Students designed the mural themselves,

and it was approved by the local Youth Bureau. Young

Scholars students, with the help of staff, transferred

their design to a blank wall and painted their

inspirational message in vibrant colors. 

My year of service passed quickly and seems to have

evaporated into the past—it’s still hard for me to

believe it ended almost seven years ago. Several of the

students I worked with have gone on to complete not

only high school but college as well. As for me, the

direction I was so longing for has come to me. My

service with VISTA was a salient clue on my journey

beyond college. Currently, I am serving the Young

Scholars Liberty Partnerships Program as assistant

director. Each day, I see reminders of the work I 

did with AmeriCorps*VISTA reflected in the work 

I do today.

John Ossowski, today

... involving students

in their community

gave them a sense 

of pride in it.

VISTA Poster 

never thought literacy was a local issue

because I considered myself well educated

and illiteracy was not a problem for me. But

when I started working with grown men who could not

read a menu or young mothers who graduated from

school but couldn’t read to their babies, I knew

differently. Compounding the problem was a local

“change is bad” mindset and parents holding the

attitude, “I don’t read so why do my kids need to read?”

The area was decaying. Many of the kids left Hermitage

as soon as they graduated high school. Sooner or later,

if no improvement was made, all that would be left in

Hermitage would be the elderly and dead beats. 

I began my VISTA experience at the Hickory County

Library in 2002 where I had already been volunteering

for about a year as a tutor and reader at story time.

When I applied to join VISTA, little did I know I was

about to embark on a life changing voyage! There were

many challenges I had as family literacy program

coordinator, and I took them on, one at a time. 

Hermitage needed literacy programs. I believe that

literacy is the most important factor in controlling

one’s life. So I established after school programs to get

children and their parents involved with reading. These

programs blossomed into many wonderful activities:

storytellers, historic reenactments, puppet shows, and

magicians came in conjunction with the programs at

our schools. 

To encourage literacy at an early age, we sponsored

local versions of national literacy contests, like Reading

Rainbow, and Letters about Literature. The first year

there were 20 entries in the children’s writing contest.

The next year, there were more than 80. We organized

pizza parties for the entrants and their families and

gave prizes. The message was getting out there. Folks

were getting involved! 

Fundraising events became more and more successful.

People donated books, which were given away at every

opportunity at local fairs and festivals. Each year more

than 300 books were given away to young readers. We

52 VISTA ... In Service to America

By Bill Arnold—AmeriCorps*VISTA, 2002-2003, Hermitage, Mo.

Hermitage, Mo., a small, poor rural community,

offered few job opportunities other than farming or

the limited tourist trade. It’s so off the beaten track

that Wal-Mart is an hour away. Even though I had lived

in the area for eight years, I was still an outsider and

had a lot to learn.

Shaving MyHead

I
53

also registered people for library cards and promoted

other library activities. Circulation improved at the

library. Eventually, we even moved

into a new library thanks in part to

the increased awareness made

possible through my VISTA efforts. 

My VISTA service led me to

increased involvement. Jumping in

with both feet, I served on the board

of the Hickory County Community

Foundation, and the Polk County

Community Connections. I also

joined the board for our Head Start

Policy Council. Through my

involvement with the Missouri

Humanities Council, a cultural organization that

promotes community, citizenship, and lifelong learning,

I organized a public forum for people to gain a better

understanding of world current events. The forum was

a highlight of my VISTA service. One of the speakers

was originally from Iraq and a professor of Middle

Eastern Studies at the Southwest Missouri State

University. He discussed the Iraqi culture and how the

events of 9/11 had affected him. The event attracted

150 people, and I think they received a new view of 

a tense situation.

But my primary focus was literacy. I did anything

necessary to encourage reading, everything from

wearing a dress and wig for “Grandma’s Story Time” 

to shaving my head as part of a reading challenge 

(If the local kids read 2,000 books during the summer 

I would shave my head). Not exactly what I had

envisioned as a VISTA member, but it got the

community involved.

The Family Literacy Program at Hickory County

Library has been very successful. Students who once

had a hard time in school significantly

improved their grades. One student

even won a writing contest. We

recruited and trained community

volunteers to tutor and read to both

children and adults. We worked with

State Fair Community College in

Sedalia, Mo., to bring a general

equivalency diploma (GED) trainer 

to the library to train tutors for GED

classes. We also accessed the training

and support services of Literacy

Investment for Tomorrow-Missouri, a

not-for-profit corporation to improve literacy services

throughout Missouri. 

When my service with VISTA ended in August 2003,

I was determined not to let the momentum die. The

outcome is the Tri-County Literacy Council. Next we are

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

Bill Arnold, 2000s

I only wish 

I had known

about the 

opportunity

before I was 

50 years old. 
54 VISTA ... In Service to America

embarking on a grant writing venture to fund

technology centers in the area. We hope to continue to

provide up-to-date literacy tutoring for adults, families,

and those learning English as a second language.

Although my VISTA service is over, I keep involved

with the literacy initiatives. I now work with Literacy

Consultants of Missouri for training, and the TriCounty Literacy Council is in the process of becoming

accredited through Pro-Literacy Worldwide. Overall,

I believe my service through VISTA has made a huge

impact on the community—not only in raising a few

reading levels, but also in raising awareness about the

importance of literacy. 

At this moment we are working with a local bank to

obtain office space for our programs. The Literacy

Council also is in the forefront of forming a literacy

coalition that will serve all of southwestern Missouri.

Perhaps the biggest event for me happened in June

2004. With the AmeriCorps Education Award I earned

from VISTA, I obtained an associate degree in business

administration through an online college. I graduated

with honors, and I am now thinking seriously about

going for my bachelor’s degree.

My life has been greatly affected by my service to

VISTA, and in turn, the community at large has been 

impacted by programs set into place. I see a bright

future as we continue to strive for excellence in 

literacy in Hickory County. VISTA has truly been 

an experience. I only wish I had known about the

opportunity before I was 50 years old. I strongly

recommend VISTA service to people in the area 

who have no direction in their lives. Much like my

military training, it has been life changing. And the

changes continue!

Bill Arnold, today
In a world that sometimes seems chaotic, angry, and

full of despair, Bend-in-the-River is a place that

offers hope and peace. 

VISTA Poster

ormerly a two-acre wasteland on the banks 

of Salt Lake City’s Jordan River, Bend-in-theRiver was transformed into an urban green

space and environmental education area, thanks to the

hard work and passion of hundreds of volunteers from

the community, university, elementary school, and

corporate groups. During the past six years, “the 

Bend” became a cornerstone for the ethnically and

socioeconomically diverse community surrounding it.

It’s also become a positive symbol for a struggling

community unfairly labeled “not quite good enough.”

Instead of giving up, many residents are fighting back,

getting involved, making a difference, and chipping

away at the walls of doubt, intolerance, and narrowmindedness surrounding them. The Bend is a catalyst

of this magical change. 

Bend-in-the-River represents the truest sense of

community partnership. Diverse partner agencies,

including the Lowell Bennion Community Service

Center at the University of Utah, Tree Utah, Utah

Society for Environmental Education, Utah Federation

for Youth, the Corporation for National and

Community Service, and Salt Lake City Corporation,

generously contribute. The project allows people in the

surrounding neighborhoods to get involved and feel

like they are making a genuine difference in their

community. Although all age groups participate, it’s 

the youth involvement that is most exciting. Parkview

Elementary, the partner school for the project, and its

students have been active since the project’s inception.

They helped survey the area when it was an

overgrown, abandoned mess. And through the creative

lens inherent to children, they saw past the weeds and

garbage to envision a place they could call their own.

Parkview students pulled weeds, planted trees, painted

pictures, studied migratory birds, tested water quality,

and wrote earth poetry. The Bend site now hosts

hundreds of schoolchildren every year, and each fall,

there is a new group of excited students who have

heard about the Bend from an older sibling, neighbor,

or cousin.

As the AmeriCorps*VISTA project coordinator, I got to

work with these amazing kids each week. Although I

usually taught the lesson, I ended up learning so much

55

By Sonja A. Hervi—AmeriCorps*VISTA, 2002-2003, Salt Lake City, Utah

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

at the

Green Space Bend

F
56 VISTA ... In Service to America

from the students, like how to say “river” in Spanish or

how to sneak up to a tree without scaring away the

downy woodpecker. But the most important lesson I

learned occurred during a Saturday service project. 

A group of student leaders from the

Lowell Bennion Community Service

Center (my AmeriCorps*VISTA

sponsor agency) and a group of

teenagers from Odyssey House,

a residential drug and alcohol

treatment center in Salt Lake 

City, visited the Bend. It was a

wonderful, warm fall day, and 

the kids from Odyssey House

impressed me with their

enthusiasm and hard work. After

our service project, we held a

reflection session in the Michael

Foundation Urban Tree House, the Bend’s outdoor

classroom. I told the participants a little more about 

the history of the project and thanked them for their

help. Then I asked for their thoughts. Based on my

experience with teenagers, I wasn’t expecting 

much response. 

They surprised me as almost every one of them took a

turn to thank or congratulate each other and speak

about the importance of service. Our reflection period

was ending when one quiet young man spoke up. He

told us that he had grown up in the surrounding

neighborhood, and he remembered when the Bend was

unsafe for kids and families. He also confessed that he

and his cousins had been responsible for some of the

mischief. Everyone laughed, but then his tone turned

more serious. He said that he couldn’t wait to finish his

term at Odyssey House so he could bring his cousins to

Bend-in-the-River and show them the changes. 

At that moment, I realized the incredible importance of

Bend-in-the-River and other projects like it. The Bend

reaches kids, even if it’s one at a time, and gives them

an outlet to make a tangible change for the better,

both in their community and in

themselves. It dawned on me that

the Odyssey House kids working to

remove invasive weeds at the Bend

was remarkably similar to them

working to remove negative

elements from their own lives.

Conversely, each time a new shrub

or tree is planted at the site, it

affords us an opportunity to worry

about something other than the

concerns of daily life and just 

focus on the simple act of planting

a tree—the labor of digging a hole,

the feeling of soil between our fingers,

and the care and concern necessary to ensure the

seedling will survive. 

If the students who enjoy the Bend can learn to care 

for the land in this way, I have every hope that they 

can spread that knowledge. Not only just in taking care 

of the earth, but also in taking care of each other and

their communities. Perhaps it’s idealistic, but idealism

brought me to national service with AmeriCorps*VISTA.

And in difficult times like these, what else do we 

have besides the belief that each of us can make 

a difference? 

I often think about the young man who joined the

reflection conversation and told us about his history at

Bend-in-the-River and his plans for the future. I hope

he does come back to the Bend many times to see the

changes he made on the site. And I hope it inspires

him, as he did me. 

The Bend reaches

kids, even if it’s one

at a time, and gives

them an outlet to

make a tangible

change for 

the better ...
57

My AmeriCorps*VISTA experience changed both my

outlook on the world and plans for the future. During

my two years working as a Bend-in-the-River VISTA

volunteer, what I saw in each person that came to the

site, whether for educational or service reasons,

continually amazed me. I especially enjoyed working

with the schoolchildren and ended up going back to

school for my teaching certification and a graduate

degree in Education. I now teach in a wonderful

elementary school with demographics similar to the

schools I visited for the Bend project: lower income,

ethnically diverse, and largely transient. These

demographics could be reasons for my students to 

give up and drop out. Instead, like at the Bend, they

care about this school and the surrounding community. 

I see so much potential in each of them to make a

positive difference in their community, and I am proud

to be a part of the faculty that makes this school a safe

place for them. 

I am grateful for my VISTA experience and the ways 

it helped me grow, both personally and professionally.

Most of all, I am grateful for the opportunity I had to

spend two years at the Bend, in a community that 

I otherwise might not have explored. 

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

Sonja Hervi, today
VISTA Poster

yearned to continue living a “life with purpose”

and to reach out to other children to share my

love and support. This longing to do more for

children led me to become an AmeriCorps*VISTA

member with the Amachi program. 

Almost a year and a half has passed since I started as

an AmeriCorps*VISTA volunteer with the Amachi

Program at Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Charlotte.

Amachi is a unique program in which people of faith

mentor children of promise. Amachi is a Nigerian Ibo

word that means “who knows but what God has

brought us through this child.” The Amachi premise is

that each child has the potential to become a productive

person if given proper nurturing and opportunity. 

As an AmeriCorps*VISTA member, it is my job with

Amachi to identify the children of incarcerated parents

so that they may be matched with a mentor.

The Amachi staff at Big Brothers and Big Sisters of

Charlotte has been working fervently to ensure that the

children of incarcerated parents in Charlotte receive the

kind of mentoring that will help them become

productive members of society. According to statistics,

an estimated 7.3 million children nationwide have 

one or both parents in prison. Without effective

intervention, 70 percent of these children will likely

follow their parents’ path. Through Amachi, dedicated

volunteers from the faith community are mentoring

more than 200 children in Charlotte. It is through 

the mentoring that the cycle of incarceration might 

be broken.

Many of these children are being reared by

grandparents or great-grandparents because, in many

instances, both parents are incarcerated. Trying to put

the caregivers at ease when explaining the Amachi

Program takes enormous effort.

An inordinate amount of my time is spent responding

to comments, questions, and suspicions, such as: Who

are you? Where did you get my name? What makes

you think my child needs help from anyone other than

myself? and Why do you think you can do a better job

58 VISTA ... In Service to America

By Jatis J. Edmond—AmeriCorps*VISTA, 2004-2005, Charlotte, N.C.

As a divorced parent working in the area of special

education, my major focus always had been on helping

children with handicaps and learning disabilities. I had

also volunteered to help deprived children from the

inner city. After retiring and moving to Charlotte,

N.C., however, I felt a void in my life.

aCry for

Tomorrow’s Child

I
59

than I can? Many of the guardians are concerned about

who will mentor their child and if the child will be safe. 

On the other hand, there are those who are not

interested at all and do not want to hear anything about

the program and, furthermore, do not trust our intent. 

I have been told, “Don’t call back again.” Recruiting

children for the program is very difficult when there

are such suspicions and distrust about almost everyone.

Nevertheless, I know that I can never loose faith if I

want to ensure a successful program, so I don’t give up.

Instead, I call another family that might be interested.

Many people are genuinely concerned for children 

of incarcerated parents. The grandparents and greatgrandparents seem to have the most interest, but 

they are usually so overwhelmed because, in many

instances, they are taking care of two or more of 

their grandchildren and/or great-grandchildren.

In some cases, both the parents and grandparents 

are incarcerated. I try to identify with the greatgrandparents who are often afraid and have no idea

how to relate to young children in their care. They limit

the children’s activities to attending school and church

for fear that something may happen to them anywhere

else. They often tell me, “The children are embarrassed

because they think I am too old and they don’t want

anyone to know that they live with me.” In spite of all

their difficulties, grandparents and great-grandparents

care for them to the best of their ability while the

parents are away. 

What a shock it was to learn that it is not unusual for a

teenage father who is in prison to meet his incarcerated

father for the first time, and neither the teenage father

nor his father had knowledge that either existed before

this first encounter. Often times there are three

generations of incarcerated fathers in the same prison

and usually none of the fathers will have had any

contact with his children before they met in prison.

Prison is where they form father and son relationships.

On the other hand, women who are incarcerated tend

to take an interest in their children and stay in contact

with the person caring for them. The women also have

a great deal of input in raising their children.

One of my greatest satisfactions since working with

Amachi came when I informed my minister about

Amachi and how he embraced the program. My church

has become one of the Amachi churches that provide

mentors. In addition to providing volunteers from the

congregation, he also became a mentor.

Being the supportive grandmother that I am, I can

empathize with the complete sacrifice that has to 

be made in caring for young children. With each

generation comes new challenges, attitudes, and

reshaped values. My personal philosophy about

children is that if given love, support, and proper

nurturing, they can accomplish anything in life,

regardless of their beginnings.

Friends and family

often comment on

my motivation and

commitment to these

children, and I hope

that from their

observations they,

too, will become

interested in 

some aspect of

AmeriCorps*VISTA.

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

Jatis J. Edmond, today
VISTA Poster

Time

to Give

year later, Saddam Hussein launched an

unprovoked war on Iran that lasted nearly 

a decade and cost more than a million lives. 

My family was fortunate enough to escape to a refugee

camp in Sweden. We fled Iran with nothing, and

without the help of others at the refugee camp, we

would have been devastated. Living in a camp was not

easy, but it was there that I learned what altruism and

community are. The lessons I learned in Sweden never

left me. I knew that one day I would be in a position to

give back to a community in a way similar to how the

camp gave to my family and me. 

After three years in Sweden, we received permission to

enter the United States. Despite some trying and

tumultuous times abroad and in the United States, my

family made it. My older brother has a master’s in

Business Administration, my twin brother is in law

school, my younger sister is at a university, and I am

pursuing a career in medicine. With a name like Mehdi

Sina, pronounced identically as the Spanish word for

medicine, it might have been predestined. 

However, before I committed myself to the rigors 

of medical education, I wanted to make a lasting

contribution to a community in need. I heard about

AmeriCorps*VISTA from a premedical student and I

searched the Internet site for volunteer opportunities. 

It did not take more than a few minutes for me to find

the Children’s Clinic. I immediately called the clinic

and spoke to the program supervisor. After hearing

about the work they intended on doing in Long Beach,

Calif., I was excited to join the team. Today, I am in my

sixth month of service, and I could not be any happier

with my choice to join the AmeriCorps*VISTA team.

Joining AmeriCorps as an AmeriCorps*VISTA member

has enabled me to fulfill the promise that I made years

ago as a child in Sweden. Back then, it was my family

that was in need of support and direction. Today, I help

deliver information, support, and direction to

thousands of highly underserved people in Long Beach

and surrounding communities. The Health Education

Department of the Children’s Clinic also helps families

complete applications for low cost health insurance,

coordinates healthy living seminars with diet and

60 VISTA ... In Service to America

By Mehdi Sina—AmeriCorps*VISTA, 2004-2005, Long Beach, Calif.

The year I was born was a turbulent time in Iran, my

native country. A few months after my birth, the face

of my country changed dramatically. The Shah was

overthrown and the Islamic Republic of Iran was

established. 

A
61

exercise advice, and connects the community to

valuable city and state resources. My work includes

training community leaders to help patients fill out

health insurance applications, recruiting and training

volunteers to coordinate the Reach Out and Read early

literacy program, and educating families on the

importance of diet and exercise. The results of our

office’s work are seen when patients come into the

clinic with active insurance policies and their physical

exams reveal them to be more fit. 

As any AmeriCorps*VISTA will attest, there are many

sacrifices one makes when joining AmeriCorps*VISTA.

Money is tight and we are sometimes overworked, but

the personal growth I have experienced and the

gratitude and satisfaction I see in the faces of our

patients make the sacrifices miniscule. 

Another added benefit of becoming an

AmeriCorps*VISTA volunteer has been the opportunity

to learn. I mentioned that I have learned a lot about

myself, but I have also learned a great deal about the

day-to-day operation of a nonprofit clinic and of state

sponsored health insurance plans. I have become active

outside of work through community organizations

determined to increase the resources that are allocated

by the city and state to communities that are in

desperate need of money. Also, thanks to my area

supervisor, I had an opportunity to attend the

Governors Conference on Women and Families. In

addition to networking and disseminating information

about AmeriCorps and VISTA, I met the First Lady of

California, Maria Shriver.

Obviously, being an AmeriCorps* VISTA is not always

fun and games. In addition to living at near poverty,

there are many other challenges that one faces. Of these

challenges, the most difficult and continuing one for

me is the language barrier between the clients I intend

to serve and myself. The clinic serves a predominantly

Latino/Latina community and many of our patients

speak no English. Although I studied Spanish in high

school, I feel ill-prepared for long conversations with

clients. As I practice speaking with patients and 

co-workers I have become more comfortable, but I have

a long way to go before I will be totally comfortable

speaking just Spanish. My temporary discomfort does

not compare to the value of the conversations I have

with patients, and that keeps me energized and

motivated.

My service thus far has given me much more than 

it has taken away from me. I feel infinitely more

connected to the community that I serve, and I 

will take with me what I have learned as an

AmeriCorps*VISTA to my career as a physician. 

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

Mehdi Sina, 2000s
VISTA Poster

Katrinas Legacy: A Family Affair

n August 28, 2005, I was working as a VISTA

for the Webster Habitat for Humanity (HFH) in

Springhill, Louisiana. I helped with fundraising

and coordinated the Collegiate Challenge, a program

that brought in college students to build houses during

their spring break. My responsibilities required me to

find places for the college students to stay, find groups

that would feed them one or two meals a day, and

generate funding from various organizations. 

Everything changed August 29.

Springhill is a rural community as far north in

Louisiana as you can get without tripping over the

Arkansas border. While we were spared the destruction

of Hurricane Katrina, we were not spared her

aftermath. Like everyone else in the country, we

watched it unfold on television. Unlike many, we were

close enough to take in evacuees who had been

displaced by the storm.

I saw these people and my heart went out to them. Just

about everyone has seen the images, but it doesn’t

compare to standing face to face with them. They were

tired, hungry, haggard, and scared. They had lost

everything. They had only what they could carry 

and that wasn’t much.

The days following the storm were a whirlwind. All I

recall is doing what needed to be done. We set up

temporary shelters, got these folks fed, and coordinated

distribution of food and clothing donations, which,

thankfully, were plentiful. Eventually we had to create 

a permanent solution. My friends, John Downs and

Tommy Brown, both members of the Ministerial

Alliance, opened the Trinity Worship Center

gymnasium to the evacuees. 

As soon as Trinity’s gym opened, Springhill needed

someone to manage it. When the town leaders called a

meeting at the Civic Center, I wasn’t even going to go. I

had responsibilities to my family and to Webster

Habitat for Humanity. I thought, “I’m only one person.

What can I do?” But a friend convinced me to go and

what I saw was an opportunity to serve my community

and use the skills that Habitat for Humanity and

VISTA had helped me develop. Someone had to

manage the shelter and make sure everyone got what

62 VISTA ... In Service to America

By Gina Hanson—AmeriCorps*VISTA, currently serving in Springhill, La.

If it weren’t for my VISTA service, I wouldn’t have 

had the experience I needed to help nearly 500

people as they fled the Gulf Coast region after

Hurricane Katrina.

O
63

they needed to survive. Someone had to step up and

assume responsibility for the evacuees. I felt a nudge

and I took the step. That nudge, I’m convinced now,

was God urging me to help these people. 

My VISTA experience kicked in right then and there.

Webster HFH released me from my commitment so I

could assume the duties of running the shelter. The

way I saw it, these people needed shelter, food, and

basic facilities first. They got that at

the shelter. Next they needed to get

in touch with FEMA so they could

register for whatever assistance they

could get. We set that up at the local

Habitat affiliate. 

But these people needed to move

beyond basics. Because of my work with VISTA, I had

the connections around the community to set things in 

motion. Tommy Brown and I went to the

Chamber of Commerce and addressed its

members. We asked them for whatever

assistance they could provide—but not money.

We asked them to help us locate vacant houses

and apartments. We asked landlords to waive

first month’s rent to help people who wanted 

to settle here once they got funding from the

government. One woman donated a house;

another furnished it. Others opened vacant

homes and apartments. 

I also pursued local employers for the evacuees.

A local restaurant needed a waitress, so I

recommended one of the girls we were

sheltering. My husband, Timmy, owns a

landscaping company and hired a couple of the

older boys to help on a couple jobs. I arranged

for others to join cleaning crews to clean offices 

after hours. 

A group of more than 20 Vietnamese evacuees posed a

particular challenge because they spoke little English.

The only other person around who spoke Vietnamese

was Tam, an orphan from Vietnam who was raised

here and now owns a nail salon in Springhill. He

volunteered his time to help communicate between us,

FEMA, and the Vietnamese evacuees. He even hired

one of the Vietnamese girls to learn

how to do nails in his shop.

I did my part to help the evacuees,

but so did my husband. Not only

did he continue his regular job, but

he was also at the shelter when I

needed someone to take out the

trash or help the evacuees move into

homes. My daughters got involved, too, by befriending

or looking after some of the younger girls at the shelter. 

Fighting Poverty for 40 Years

Gina Hanson, today

I saw these people

and my heart went

out to them.
64 VISTA ... In Service to America

By rough count, 500 evacuees came through Springhill

looking for assistance. Some stayed, some moved on.

Regardless, our work at the shelter was like witnessing

a thousand wonders. I look back at it and think there is

no way things should have worked. Things came

together that never should have and everything that

had to happen, happened. 

Katrina’s legacy, like Pearl Harbor and 9/11 before it,

will be one of horrors, despair, and destruction. These

events earned those legacies. But our work, here in

Springhill and that of volunteers all over the region,

deserves its own legacy, a legacy of perseverance, a

legacy of sheltering those who have nowhere else 

to go, a legacy of reaching out, a legacy of service.

The Corporation for National and Community Service provides opportunities for Americans of all ages and backgrounds to serve their

communities and country, primarily through Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America programs. Together with the 

USA Freedom Corps, the Corporation is working to build a culture of citizenship, service, and responsibility in America.

May 2006 Upon request this material will be made available in alternative forms for people with disabilities

Apply online at www.americorps.gov

Or call toll-free 800.942.2677

TTY: 800.833.3722

Corporation for National and Community Service • AmeriCorps*VISTA

1201 New York Avenue, NW • Washington, DC 20525 • 202.606.5000 • TYY: 202.565.2799 • www.nationalservice.gov