It’s been quite a while since I last wrote, but it’s not for a lack of things to say. Wrapping up the Fall semester and then preparing for the Spring semester kept me very busy! As I discussed the areas of greatest need with community partners, talked to professors about the setup of their Community Based Learning courses, and helped students to choose the appropriate community projects for the semester, I couldn’t help looking back to August and September, when I first started as a VISTA at Holy Cross. I was performing the same tasks in September as I did in January, yet the process seemed entirely different the second time around. It was a great feeling to understand my responsibilities and even suggest measures for improvement, especially when I remembered feeling lost and confused during my first month as a VISTA. It’s truly remarkable how much you can learn in a mere few months.

At the end of January, our office hosted a visit from Peachy Myers, White House Liaison to the Corporation for National and Community Service and a former MACC VISTA. In an address to students, Ms. Myers shared her remarkable story, beginning with her service as a VISTA at UMass Boston, and ending with a job at the White House—and she’s only 32 years old! In ten years after graduating from Vanderbilt, Ms. Myers advocated for the homeless in San Francisco, aided Hurricane Katrina victims in Austin, played a key organizing role in Obama’s campaign, and started working toward a Master’s degree—though opportunities to serve all over the United States have delayed her from completing her degree so far. In a roundtable discussion, Ms. Myers urged students to give up on the idea of a five or ten year plan, and instead to consider life after graduation one year at a time. If she had set her mind to completing a degree or working in a specific field immediately after graduating, Ms. Myers would have missed out on the amazing opportunities she’s squeezed into a short ten year timeframe. A very recent graduate myself, I was inspired and relieved to hear about Peachy’s many successes and the roundabout path that has led her to each of them.

Yesterday, I was able to visit Kate Rafey, the VISTA at Stonehill College, whose work is very similar to my own. MACC encourages VISTAs to visit one another and trade ideas, but this was the first time I’ve taken advantage of such an opportunity. While Kate’s office has a very similar set up to my own, she’s taken different approaches to many of the same issues that I’ve come across (transportation, for instance, which seems to plague most service learning and community service offices). Chatting with Kate about the structure of her office, her process for placing students at community sites, and even the CBL courses that Stonehill offers has given me new ideas that I’d like to implement at Holy Cross. It seems that every college or university has an entirely different structure of offices, especially when it comes to community engagement, and I find it fascinating to discover where VISTAs sit at their institutions and what role they play in community engagement. It’s hard to believe that half of my VISTA term is over, but I’ll definitely take advantage of more VISTA visits over the next six months.