WHEELING, WV, Oct 19, 2009 — For more than 40 years, VISTA has been fighting poverty across the USA and this year is no different. Now, due to President Barack Obama’s recovery program, VISTA workers are even more visible this fall.
AmeriCorps VISTA is the national service program founded as Volunteers in Service to America in 1965 and incorporated into the AmeriCorps network of programs in 1993. Recovery VISTAS are special volunteers who perform work directly related to the current economic recovery due to recession.
Wheeling Jesuit University is proud to claim four graduates working in local neighborhoods as these special volunteers and additional VISTAS around the state.
In fact, the coordinator of the West Virginia Higher Education Service Learning VISTA Project is associated with the local university, WJU's Appalachian Institute Director Jill Kriesky (shown above).
Under this umbrella project, there are currently four recovery VISTAs (one each at Wheeling Jesuit, Bethany College, West Virginia Wesleyan College and Concord University) and seven classic VISTAs (two at Wheeling Jesuit, two at Wesleyan, two at Concord and one at West Virginia Campus Compact), according to Kriesky. Three other institutions — Marshall University, WVU, and Southern WV Community College — are in line to recruit classic VISTAs soon.
One-year recovery-VISTAs are funded by the federal government stimulus package. But classic VISTAs are funded annually and members may serve up to three years, explains Kriesky. Each VISTA worker receives a small stipend and an educational award to be used to pay off student loan debt or to enroll in other advanced educational programs.
Wheeling Jesuit offers additional support to the VISTAs who serve at its two sites on campus (Appalachian Institute and the Service for Social Action Center) by offering them housing.
The work done by recovery VISTAs relates to community needs due to the deepening recession.
For example: 2009 Wheeling Jesuit graduate Jenna Derrico is working with leaders of non-profits, schools, churches and other organizations to discover community needs that have increased due to the recession. She is then developing projects to address theses needs using Wheeling Jesuit students and other resources.
Right now she’s excited about the community food bank she’s working on, a job training project and a project for kids and families to find entertainment and creative outlets during the recession.
“I’m loving it and I’m really surprised at how quickly I got involved in such big projects,” said Derrico, whose hometown is Canonsburg, Pa. An English literature major, Derrico thought she’d enter international service after commencement last May but when the recession hit, she changed her plans and decided to serve here in Wheeling.
Eventually, she’ll attend graduate school and hopes to find a career in the publishing or creative writing field.
Classic VISTAs work on something called “capacity building” for organizations they serve.
Adrienne Greene is one of these. Greene, a 2008 graduate of Wheeling Jesuit is working at the sustainability of service projects and is developing a new trip to Washington, D.C. for WJU students. This new D.C. trip is part of the Homeless Challenge Project designed through the national coalition for the homeless and will allow a dozen students to spend 48 hours homeless on the streets of our nation’s capitol. Recruitment for this project is going on right now but Greene also works with the prison ministry program at WJU, that serves incarcerated juveniles.
Greene’s office is in the university’s Service for Social Action Center, directed by Erin McDonald, a 2004 graduate of Wheeling Jesuit. Greene’s title is the service development and research coordinator.
A professional communications major, Greene’s hometown is Fairmont and she too hopes to go to graduate school in the future. But before that comes to pass, she is very content working in the service arena.
(Shown from left are: Adrienne Greene, Beth Dale, Danny Swann and Jenna Derrico.)
Beth Dale also serves as a VISTA member at Wheeling Jesuit’s Appalachian Institute. She is a 2009 graduate of West Virginia Wesleyan. Dale joined the service work at Wheeling Jesuit because she’s passionate about West Virginia.
“I wanted to bring awareness to Appalachian issues and this was the best location to do it. I want to learn more about the issues so that I can raise awareness in people,” Dale said. A Parkersburg native, she earned her degree in sociology and environmental studies and hopes to work in community development in Nicaragua in the future. Dale is currently working on expanding service immersion trips from Wheeling Jesuit and other colleges, universities and high schools around the country. She’s pleased to be able to work with Kriesky, who is very knowledgeable about Appalachian topics.
Other Wheeling Jesuit graduates serving as VISTAs in the Wheeling area this year include Renee Stewart ’09, who is working at the Greater Wheeling Coalition for the Homeless, located on 15th Street in East Wheeling.
She works with Lisa Badia, the executive director and also a graduate of Wheeling Jesuit, class of 1992.
(Renee Stewart shown at right.)
Stewart helps Badia with the work of volunteer recruitment and outreach programs to the homeless that are unsheltered. Currently, they are working on obtaining a freeze shelter, a place for the homeless to go at night when the temperature falls below 32 degrees. Another project she’s working on is collecting books for the book club that the shelter runs for her clients.
Stewart was a double major in biology and chemistry while at Wheeling Jesuit and hopes to go to medical school someday, possibly working in public health.
“I love my job at the Homeless Coalition, I have an office near the entrance and talk to clients all day, plus the staff is great,” she said. Stewart finds joy in her work, even when it involves searching for the homeless.
“Just yesterday we found a mattress under a bridge that a homeless person was obviously using for shelter and it had such a picturesque view of the river that I snapped a photo.” Stewart and her outreach team also left the person a care package of food, water, toiletries and a business card, to direct them to the Homeless Coalition.
Another VISTA hard at work in East Wheeling is Wheeling Jesuit graduate Danny Swan '09. Swan works at Laughlin Memorial Chapel where he develops community gardens and is involved in a new program called Jobs for a Stronger Ohio County (JSOC).
