Back in Charlotte and fired up!

Whew! That was a very busy week. We left Sunday for Atlanta and put in 56 hours in four days. Then I flew to Chicago for a wedding then to Raleigh then home to Charlotte. It feels great to be back.

The trip to Chicago gave me a few days to digest the Hands On Network’s AmeriCorps member conference. If there was an overriding idea to the training, it was that we – as individual citizens – are connected to the people in our communities in important ways. As AmeriCorps at Hands On Charlotte, we have the opportunity to foster those community connections. Here is how we think we can reach that end:

1. Organize volunteer events: A.M., Bryan, Janelle and Shari are part of Hands On Charlotte’s frontline in designing service projects for Charlotte-area volunteers.
2. Recruit volunteers: Marcel, Sarah and I help out here. Whether it’s in person, on the phone, through email, blog, Twitter or Facebook, we are always trying to find ways to bring new Charlotteans onto the volunteering seen.
3. Support volunteers: Once we have volunteers at our events, it’s our job to support them. We have to let them see the impact their making and equip them to continue their work.

So here’s my question to you, our most dedicated supporters: How can you help on these fronts? With which of these three bullets can you bolster our efforts? Do you know an area non-profit that needs some help in the coming months? Organize an event! Do you know someone who wants to volunteer but doesn’t know where to start? Recruit someone to join you at an HOC project! Do you have ideas about how HOC can better support its volunteers? Send me an email, and I’ll read it aloud at our next staff meeting!

What I learned at the conference is this: AmeriCorps members can organize, recruit and retain volunteers until we’re blue in the face. Unless we convince the community to join these endeavors in significant ways, our impact will lack the breadth and depth to answer sufficiently our community’s needs.


Tanner


PS – The wedding was great! And if you haven’t been to Chicago, I suggest you make it a priority…in the summer.

Pop quiz (and it's easy yes/no questions!)

Can you read?


Can you do basic (no more than algebra) math?


Can you describe a platypus?


If you answered yes to any of these questions, you're perfectly qualified to tutor in one of Hand On Charlotte's adult literacy/GED tutoring labs.


Each week, HOC provides volunteers for labs at two Central Piedmont Community College (CPCC) campuses, Central and Harris (by the airport). Six projects are offered at various times during the day and evening Tuesdays through Thursdays.

I've been a tutor since I joined HOC in 2000 and have co-led the Thursday night project at CPCC's Harris Campus since 2003 (I think!). It's been the most rewarding of all my HOC experiences by far. I've been a bookworm since I was a kid; I can't imagine not being able to read, to be transported through the power of words to another time, place, perspective, experience. To be able to help other people become confident in their ability to transform the characters on a page to images in their minds is the greatest privilege!

Right now, we need a lot more volunteers who are interested in literacy to join us at the Harris Campus on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. to experience this great privilege. A typical night finds the lab full of 10 to 15 students, eager for some personal attention and instruction. That same night finds the lab near-vacant of volunteers to help them. Sometimes, we have as few as three tutors; other times, we have seven or eight. Either way, tutors have to juggle at least two and sometimes three or four students, and no one gets a quality experience in this situation.

I think volunteers shy away from tutoring older students and adults out of fear. Perhaps they don't realize that most of our students range from reading at the third-grade level to finishing their GED and are afraid they won't know or remember what to teach or how to help them. (Here are a couple of hints: the textbooks used in both the literacy and GED programs are super-easy to understand and it's OK to send a student to the restroom for five minutes while you brush up on your long division skills!)


Perhaps they're nervous about the kinds of students they'll encounter. I've met the most amazing folks: a woman in her mid-50s who came "to school" after the women in her church laughed at her when they realized she couldn't read; some of the Lost Boys who braved the killing fields of Rwanda to come to the U.S.; a sharecropper's son from South Carolina in his late 70s who came to the lab faithfully every day after work and spent three-and-a-half hours learning the alphabet.


And (here's where that platypus comes in) sisters from Somalia who worked as hotel maids by day and studied English by night. It's hard enough to explain a platypus to someone whose native tongue is English; try explaining it to someone who's just learning our language! But I promise you, this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do as a tutor!


If you can describe a platypus, tell a noun from a verb and/or add a (short!) column of numbers, please consider trying one of the adult tutoring projects! I can't speak for the others, but on Thursday nights at the Harris Campus, we've got a dedicated corps of regular tutors who welcome you to join us! More importantly, we've got an enthusiastic corps of regular students who will be more grateful for your presence and brains than I can express to you on this blog.


Tutoring is not just about volunteers teaching the students; there's plenty of learning happening both ways. But you'll have to come find that out on your own. See you Thursday!


Sara Collins is the co-leader at the CPCC GED tutoring program.

Update from the retreat

Bryan, Janelle, Marcel, Sarah, Shari and I are deep into our AmeriCorps member conference. We also appear to be deep into the Georgian woods. The first day was fun. Exhausting, but fun. It was filled with team-building fun, motivational chats and a bonfire with Michelle Nunn, the CEO of Hands On Charlotte's parent, the Points of Light Institute. For all the cheesy and awkward moments, it was a good day. There are some pretty exceptional people here, and it's always good to learn from exceptional people.

It's always fun to spend time with other AmeriCorps members from sites around the country. There are members here from New York, Chicago, San Fransisco, Seattle and Miami, among other places. Rest assured, the Charlotte cohort is representing our city well.

Details will follow next week, but I wanted to drop a line and say hello. Hopefully everything is going well back in Charlotte!

Friday Roundup 11.5.10: The Pre-Wilderness Retreat Edition

Happy Friday, everyone! This week zoomed by – perhaps because all the Hands On Charlotte AmeriCorps members are heading to Atlanta this weekend for a conference. As you may know, Hands On Charlotte employs seven AmeriCorps members – A.M., Bryan, Janelle, Marcel, Sarah, Shari and yours truly. As part of our development, we attend conferences and trainings throughout the year. Next week’s conference is at what appears to be a wilderness retreat outside Atlanta. I will Tweet and blog to keep you updated. Wish me luck.


In other news…not many people have updated their demographic information, and so not many people are eligible to win one of three US Airways gift cards worth $250 each. If you want to enter the drawing, all you have to do is update your demographic information on our Web site by November 10. That is next Wednesday. As I blogged yesterday, right now, your chances of winning are pretty good.


While I’ll be in Georgia by Sunday, there are plenty of fun volunteer opportunities for you here in the Queen City. Here are a few of your options:

• Saturday – Spruce up Hospitality House: Hospitality House offers a place for people to stay while their loved ones are receiving medical care in Charlotte. They need your help cleaning on Saturday morning.
• Saturday – Assistance League Thrift Store: This is one of my favorite projects. Come help sort donations at the AL Thrift Store. Proceeds go to help low-income communities in Charlotte.
• Saturday – The Amazing Race: Volunteers will try to follow clues and to solve problems in a race around Uptown. Total walking is about 4 miles.
  
  

I hope you have a great weekend! Check back next week for blogs and Tweets from the Georgian wilderness. And don’t forget to enter the US Airways drawing!




Tanner

Right now, your chances would be pretty good

We are giving away three US Airways gift cards worth $250 each. To be eligible for the drawing, all you have to do is update your volunteer demographic information on our Web site by November 10.

Now, here's the thing: If the drawing were today, your chances of winning would be really, really....REALLY....good. I don't want to tip my hat as to just how good, but I'm willing to bet there are very few better chances to win $250.

Do you want to enter the drawing? All you have to do is log on to our Web site, then update your demographic information. If you have any problems, email Tanner Kroeger.