Meet the Team and our Service Sites!

Project POWER/AmeriCorps members began at their service sites yesterday!  All across town, elementary to high school students were being introduced to this year’s team. Enjoy the break down and be on the look-out for AmeriCorps t-shirts and the good work that surrounds them!

Project MARCH is working with seven Project POWER/AmeriCorps members this year! The members serving with Project MARCH facilitate after-school Learning Centers in three Asheville neighborhoods: PVA, Deaverview and Woodridge.  The seven members with Project MARCH all work in the local schools that their students attend, helping to bridge the gap between schools, neighborhoods and families!

The YMCA of Western North Carolina has six Project POWER/AmeriCorps members working with elementary and middle school youth throughout the Asheville and Buncombe County area.  These members will facilitate homework time, demonstrate positive relationships and mentor students throughout the school year and into summer camp!

Off South French Broad, the YWCA of Asheville, received five Project POWER/AmeriCorps members.  This year there is a bit of change at the YWCA, with an added position and new leadership (the new Director of FutureVision is a past Project POWER/AmeriCorps member)!  Project POWER/AmeriCorps members will be staffing the FutureVision Middle and High School Programs, like last year.  The Volunteer Coordinator is another stellar Project POWER/AmeriCorps member.  And the happy new addition is a Garden and Physical Activities Coordinator, highlighting the fun ways we can get students moving, eating healthy and on the path to a healthy lifestyle!

The UNCA Key Center welcomed back their member from last year.  Once again Project POWER/AmeriCorps will have a hand in spreading the good news of service learning around campus, while linking students to volunteer opportunities within our community!

At Asheville Middle School, the In Real Life program is hosting a past Project POWER/AmeriCorps member as their Volunteer Coordinator and a current Project POWER/AmeriCorps member to facilitate real life experiences for middle school students!

Last, but certainly not least, are the full day positions at local schools.  We have two full-time Garden and Volunteer Coordinators working at Vance Elementary and Hall Fletcher Elementary in West Asheville.  Both of these members have bright faces, interested minds, loads of dirt and great communities to create vegetables, flowers and volunteer-based school support groups from.  At ArtSpace Charter School we have three full-time Project POWER/AmeriCorps members providing direct support in the classroom, organizing a lovely school garden, involving the community in creative ways and organizing the overwhelming love of the parent-volunteers.

Getting Things Done

The new Project POWER/AmeriCorps team is up and running!

On Friday they participated in their first group service project.  The team gathered at William Randolph School for an afternoon of service and team bonding.  Fletcher Comer and Eric Howard, school administrators, gathered the team together, outlined the various volunteer projects and set the team free to get busy!

Groups created inspirational bulletin boards.  Quotes from Emerson, Ali and Jay Z will greet students tomorrow morning on their first day, demonstrating positive attitudes and the love our community has for these young men and women.

Other groups helped to clean-up the greenhouse, weed the front beds, remove large old furniture and spruce up the cafeteria.  By the end of the afternoon the group was tired and William Randolph School was sparkling.

“Because your heart is so beautiful, everything looks beautiful to you.” Japanese proverb

Asheville, get ready for another beautiful year, full of service, love and community building!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

New Team, New Year!

This morning the new members of Project POWER/AmeriCorps Team 14 walked through the doors of the United Way building, smiling and ready to tackle a year of service.

The next three weeks will be dedicated to building a cohesive and knowledgable team. Trainings ranging from behavior management to workshops focusing on literacy skills and the still new math curriculum will be occurring around town.  New members will also be meeting members in the community that will help them along their journey and completing a service project at William Randolph School.  After this, members will begin the real work at their schools and                                                               after-school sites.

Keep your eyes open, there are big hopes for the year!

Project POWER/AmeriCorps Graduation

The Project POWER/AmeriCorps team graduated last night.  It was an amazing night, full of reflection and hope.

The past year has been incredible, our team has reached out to serve the youth and families of Asheville and Buncombe County, and along the way we have changed and grown as much as the little and big ones, the families and neighborhoods we served.   We have gotten to go through the growing pains of EOGs and the fun screams of recess, we have made summer an exciting time where adventure and exploration are hallmarks, we have matched students and mentors to build lasting and positive relationships and we have most of all made our community stronger through daily acts of warmth and kindness.

Hats off to Team 13!

The Soup is on the Move!

Ira B. Jones Elementary and the Grove Park Inn are on the move with their Tuscan smoked turkey and bean soup!  The group, complete with their Project POWER/AmeriCorps member, will arrive in Dallas, Texas on Sunday morning to prep for the cook off. This is the final phase in the Chefs Move to Schools initiative launched by Michelle Obama as part of the Let’s Move campaign.

The cooking team has been working hard in the various back kitchens of the Grove Park Inn to perfect their technique and timing.  As Chef Trantham says, “it is all about ‘mise en place’ -getting everything to its place in the kitchen, both physically and mentally.”

Tara, our Project POWER/AmeriCorps member on the cooking team, has been helping to mentally prepare the student representative.  Together they have made note cards, practiced vegetable identification (kale and parsley can be a bit tricky) and gone over every question they think a judge or the First Lady might ask.

Sarah Cain, the principal at Ira B. Jones, and Susan Bowers, the Child Nutrition Specialist, have been guiding the project all along, providing an endless source of encouragement to our student representative and lots of love during the practice phase!

Hats off to Ira B. Jones and the Grove Park Inn!  It is great to live in a community where the welfare, health and happiness of children is being championed!

Summer School in the Garden!

Summer school at Vance is all about the Peace Garden!

Nicole, our Project POWER/AmeriCorps member serving at Vance Elementary, has incorporated summer school curriculum into the garden.  Students are coming out and working one projects designed around literacy, math and science.

The 5th grade class out and about this past week, were interested in catching bugs and building terrariums.  As groups explored and worked on tools to capture little creatures, questions and observations came blurting out at record speed.  Over the course of the lesson students journaled their findings, explored the different areas of the garden and discussed how they housed different bugs, they ended with wonderful microcosm of the garden to take back to the class for further study.

As the Vance Peace Garden becomes further incorporated into the school curriculum it provides amazing opportunities for academic enrichment, alternative learning experiences and moments of growth and diversity.

So, get out and check out your local gardens!  Encourage your community to invest in sustainable teaching tools that encourage skill development, nourish the community and enhance the lives of those who are willing to give a little sweat and gain some dirty hands-on experience.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

StarWars, Shakespeare and ArtSpace

ArtSpace held ‘The Shakespeare Academy’ last week.  Student-campers collaborated with two teacher-directors, Josh Batenhorst and John Hall, and their two Project POWER/AmeriCorps stage managers, Emma and Christy!

Over the course of camp the group worked to create a new take on William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors.  This new take took the play to the planet of Alderaan and included such characters as Dr. Pinch/Poke, Duke Solinus of Alderaan, Jabba Angelo (a goldsmith), alien translators and Amelia the Jedi priestess.

Creativity flowed.  From slight changes in lines to accommodate the adopted setting of space to costumes reminiscent of space-aged freedom fighters with a flair of 80s fashion; student input, excitement and involvement was obvious.