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AmeriCorps Team Learns Much from Youngstown
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Before last year, Rachel Evans, who grew up in Washington near the Canadian border on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound, never got close to the East Coast. Her experience in the AmeriCorps program, though, has taken her to New York City, New Jersey, Connecticut – and, of course, Ohio.
“It’s been a great traveling and leadership experience for me,” she said.
Evans is one of eight members of the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps team who arrived in Youngstown last month to work with the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. Participants in the 10-month program – ages 18 to 24 -- are organized in teams of eight to 12. They work and live together as they perform community service projects across the country. Each AmeriCorps member receives $5,500 to help pay for college or repay student loans in addition to a small stipend and room and board.
In Youngstown, the AmeriCorps group is focusing on work at the Iron Roots Urban Farm, a 2.5-acre community garden on Canfield Road as well as fighting blight, said Evans. She graduated from college in 2010 with a degree in social welfare.
“It’s been a tremendous asset to have them here,” said Presley Gillespie, YNDC executive director. “They’re full of energy and we’re really excited about our growing relationship with the national AmeriCorps organization.” YNDC is the first organization in the city to host an AmeriCorps team.
The team in Youngstown, who is staying at Holy Apostle Parish, is based out of the north Central Region campus in Vinton, Iowa.
“It’s taught me a lot. I’ve seen a lot of things I haven’t seen before, I’ve done things I haven’t done before,” said Trent Nelson of Pittsburgh. Graduating from high school last year and unsure what he wanted to pursue in college, “AmeriCorps seemed like the best option for life experience,” he remarked. “It’s doing something good for the country and for your communities.”
Nelson’s AmeriCorps experiences have helped to steer him toward business and entrepreneurship. The opening of the Bottom Dollar Food supermarket, in an area not far from the Iron Roots garden and a section of the city considered a food desert, showed how much a business can benefit a neighborhood or cluster of neighborhoods.
Evans said when she leaves Youngstown – the group departs at the end of April after seven weeks in the city – she’ll take with her a lot of knowledge about the East Coast and Ohio community development in particular. As an AmeriCorps participant last year, she was in Akron doing urban gardening and has been looking at the state’s needs in community development. “It’s really interesting to see the different community members and just the work and progression that Ohio is trying to make forward with these communities,” she said.
Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.