New Home for the Retiree Connection

Can you imagine a world where almost half of the people you meet are retired or of retirement age?  Can you imagine how much talent, skill, and experience must exist in such a world?  Well, my fellow Yavapai County residents, you are living in this world!  According to the 2010 US Census, 41.1% of the total population of Yavapai County is aged 55+.  In Prescott, this percentage jumps to 48.7%!  We have enough experience and skill here to solve all the major world problems, I am sure!  The key now is to connect this talent with meaningful opportunities to do just that.  This recognition of our community’s vast amount of skill and expertise is the very reason that Yavapai College’s Division for Lifelong Learning created the Retiree Connection back in 2009.  As the AmeriCorps VISTA, Donna Bellina, finished her three-year term with the Retiree Connection this past fall, it was decided that Serve Yavapai would be a better home for it. Thus, Serve Yavapai is now the proud host of the Retiree Connection, and we have been doing a lot of work to revamp and streamline this much-needed project.

Most of you are probably wondering exactly what this Retiree Connection thing is all about.  Well, simply put it is a tool for our community to connect retired adults with meaningful volunteer opportunities in order to increase the quality of life of all Yavapai County residents.  This tool is taking the shape of a database that effortlessly matches volunteer interests, skills and availabilities with those of various volunteer positions available with area non-profits & service providers.  This database will allow Serve Yavapai to host an online volunteer sign-up page as well as an up-to-date online listing of available volunteer positions in our community.  Sound exciting?!?!  We think it is!

This exciting new database is still in the works, though we anticipate that it should be completely up and running by the end of February.  However, if you are interested in starting the process of applying, as a volunteer, you are invited to fill out our online Skills Survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RetireeConnection_Volunteer.  Likewise, if your organization is looking for talented and reliable volunteers, you are invited to fill out our online application form at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RetireeConnection_Organization. 

In addition, as part of our efforts to increase awareness of volunteerism in our community through our celebration of AmeriCorps Week, March 10-16, Serve Yavapai will be hosting an informational gathering on the Retiree Connection.  Be on the look out for further details about this and other AmeriCorps Week events!

If you have any questions about the Retiree Connection, or want to learn more about how to be involved, please send me an email to nlstanton@gmail.com or call me at 928-848-7870.  I look forward to serving with and for you to improve the quality of life in our community!

Coalition for Compassion and Justice Wins Walmart Grant with Support of CNCS!

VISTA member Carl Grimes packing up food
at 9/11 Day of Service

Thanks to a partnership with the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the Coalition for Compassion and Justice's Weekend Family Food project has been chosen as a recipient of the Wal-Mart State giving grant.  The Deputy Director of Corporate Relations at CNCS, Rhonda Taylor, helped connect AmeriCorps VISTA member Carl Grimes with the state giving program. The award totaled $35,000 and will allow the project to continue many months past its original expiration date. 

Weekend Family Food is a project of the Coalition for Compassion and Justices’ Open Door program and coordinated by Carl. Every week Weekend Family Food provides bags of groceries filled with nutritious foods to nearly 470 food-insecure children ages birth to five who are at high risk of going hungry over the weekend.

The grant opportunity came about when Yavapai County VISTA Program Director Maggie Garvey was informed by CNCS about the Wal-Mart State Giving grant. She contacted Carl and his site supervisor Gerry Garvey about the opportunity. After they attended a conference call summarizing the grant it was quickly decided that the project fell within the grant’s focus area, and an application was submitted soon after. In November Carl received an E-mail notifying him that the project had been chosen to receive funding. A check for $35,000 was received a few weeks later.

Originally Weekend Family Food was set to expire in February due to limited funding; however, thanks to the grant the project will be able to continue until the end of the school year. So far the grant has been used to purchase a van and a climate controlled storage unit. Both of which these will make the project more efficient and effective at getting food to low income children.

Maggie Garvey's Remarks at Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service

AmeriCorps Member Emma Gifford and VISTA Member
Jennifer Gosnell welcoming volunteers.

Good morning and thank you for joining us today to celebrate the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service!  I want to tell you a bit about this holiday in hopes that you will leave here with an inspired vision of how each of you today are a part of a nationwide day of service and a nationwide movement that intends to prove that everyday people, every day volunteers like you an me, have the capacity to change our communities and our nation and make real King's vision of the beloved community.

Volunteers registering for their service projects

I came to National Service in 2006 to serve with AmeriCorps VISTA in Prescott Valley. In 2007, I stepped into the first coordinator position for the Project. Thanks to the tireless efforts of service members who have served since then, our project began to grow and today we have over 30 National Service members serving throughout Yavapai County.  More than that, we have a strong partnership with an AmeriCorps State program hosted out of Community Counts. Working together as Serve Yavapai, we offer capacity building and direct service opportunities to our communities. Our joint mission is to help build and sustain the efforts of Yavapai County service providers and community members to continually improve the quality of life across the region.

In the spirit of fulfilling that mission, we are honored to support and organize the MLK Day of Service holiday as part of creating healthy and just communities.  In 1983, Congress created a federal holiday marking the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a nationally recognized holiday. In 1994, Congress designated the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Holiday as a National Day of Service. The MLK Day of Service is a way to honor Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life and teachings by dedicating yourself to community action that helps solve social problems. 

This is our fifth year planning this event and each year it continues to grow and build upon itself! Much of this events success is directly related to the wonderful event organizers we have had in the past and continue to have serving in our community. This year, thanks to the efforts of our wonderful event planner and VISTA Leader Erika Stone, this project is for the second year in a row officially county wide.

As we gather here today, more Yavapai County residents are gathered in Beaver Creek/ RimRock Lake Montezuma. They are engaged in a variety of projects including assisting homebound community members and protecting Montezuma’s Well the National Monument by doing clearing and restoration work. More Yavapai County residents are gathered writing letter to our troops and working with youth in juvenile probation and detention to connect these youth to the importance of giving and the importance of being needed by your community.

 Our county is active today!!! There can be no doubt that Yavapai County did not take a day off today and instead, we are ON!

Our county wide efforts are a piece of a statewide effort with projects organized and mobilized across the state—in Tucson and  Phoenix on tribal lands and in small towns like ours. Our state joins a nationwide effort on this day with over 3,500 projects organized across the country each project like ours brining people together from all parts of our community and all walks of life to work to make our communities stronger, healthier, and better able to meet the needs of those among us that are the most vulnerable.

VISTA Member Yanina Rivera helping out
at the Granite Peak Neighborhood Project

Each year of our participation in this event has had its own memorable experiences.  This year, I am called to speak about unity. As each of us sits here, the election season in this country is whipping up. The divisive and polarizing forces are working around the clock to split hairs between the candidates and split the public into divided camps.

At a time when the world feels sometimes dangerously divided, we here do something truly radical and at the same time so beautifully natural. We unite, not despite our differences, but in recognition of our differences - in recognition of our differences, and in support of our community.  We unite with each other, and we protect our space together, by clarifying our joint purpose, by apologizing when feelings get hurt and by accepting that this union is a precious one.  But we still unite, knowing that what divides us is so small, so insignificant, compared to the ocean of need that demands our united action. 

We are wise enough to know that a hungry child cares nothing for politics but cares desperately about the well of our compassion.  That our creeks care not whose hand removes the trash that prevents its’ flow and that our nonprofit organizations will take all the help they can get responding the shocking increase in demand for their services.  

We know what today is about and we know what it will take to build the beloved community. It will take unity and compassion and the release of all things not as important as the challenges we stand here today to meet.

When we refuse to focus on what divides us and instead stay true to unity and to the calling of serving those in need, we honor Dr. King with fierce loyalty to his legacy.

Dr. King said, “I have decided to stick with love- because hate is too great a burden to bear.” Each of us has decided to stick with love today. We have done this by signing a pledge to be nonviolent and to do good deeds for the next 40 days. And we have decided to stick with love by serving and giving to others.

Our strongest hope is that today becomes a form of active reflection and dedication for each of us — when we focus with our hearts and with our deeds on repairing the divisions, erasing those invisible lines that set us apart from each other. And if you haven’t already, make today the first day of a year long and a lifelong commitment to the service of others.

A Holiday Conundrum Solved!

Written by VISTA Member Kristen Menger

Ahh, Thanksgiving. Stuffed with potatoes and pies, we counted our blessings and were thankful.

Now we move on to the next joyous holiday! For many, that means Christmas or another gift-giving holiday. What are you going to get for Aunt Ethel? She makes you cookies! With love baked right in! Surely no doo-dad picked at random will do.

The new trendy thing to give is a donation to a charity in her name. (And Aunt Ethel is very trendy.) You could choose one of her pet causes, or introduce her to one you support. Many small or local nonprofits fly under the radar at seasons of giving. Sure, Salvation Army is ringing the bell outside grocery stores, but many organizations are too small to spare the staff or volunteers for that kind of visibility.

Meet Prescott Alternative Transportation (PAT). We're a small and local nonprofit working for a bicycle and pedestrian-friendly central Yavapai community. We act as the voice for those who cannot or choose not to drive a car to every destination, whether for health, environmental, or financial reasons. (Aunt Ethel is always concerned about those crazy gas prices.)

Through education and advocacy, PAT has been guiding the Prescott area towards a future with safe and convenient transportation options since 1997. We have brought in millions of grant dollars to fund road improvements, work to build and connect trails and greenways, and have been running the local Safe Routes to School program since 2001. Many of our initiatives do not bring in any funding for PAT itself. Although we delight in service to our community, we too have to pay the bills. (Ugh.)

If you walk or bike to work, school, recreation or shopping, one of the easiest and most efficient methods of making that journey safer and more convenient is to donate to PAT.

I know a few of my loved ones will be "donating" to Prescott Alternative Transportation this year!

For more information, visit the PAT Facebook page, email us at pat@prescottbikeped.org, or call us at 928.708.0911. 

Watershed Improvement Council Members meet with Ecosa

Katy Szapa introduces current design concepts on Nov. 21, 2011

On November 21, 2011 several members of the Watershed Improvement Council (WIC) met with Ecosa faculty, staff & students. Watershed Improvement Council representatives from Prescott Creeks, City of Prescott and Yavapai County were present.

Ecosa students presented restoration concepts for further development that will benefit the lower Miller Creek watershed area. Concepts included ideas for engaging with owners of property through which the creek passes, identification of specific “hot spot” locations where restoration activities may have the most impact, and specific strategies that will help create riparian buffer zones that filter pollutants before entering the creek from run-off sources.

Watershed Improvement Council representatives
from the City of Prescott, Yavapai County and
Prescott Creeks were in attendance

Additional concepts explored possibilities for livestock manure management that might have a regenerative effect in the local economy, benefiting local farming or even electrical energy production. One concept involved the research and introduction of indigenous mushroom fungus that will remove excess nutrients and contaminants from the creek.

As part of the ongoing project process, Watershed Improvement Council members will review initial concepts and provide Ecosa with direction on which ideas to develop further. The final presentation of this semester’s work is on December 15, 2011. Community members are invited to attend. Please RSVP at 928-541-1002 if you are interested in coming as space is limited.

Levi Mason, AmeriCorps
VISTA Member

Ecosa Institute and Prescott Creeks both received matching grants to host AmeriCorps VISTA members in 2010-2011. In 2011-2012, Ecosa is hosting VISTA member Levi Mason who is documenting Ecosa’s role in this project through photography, video and the Ecosa blog. As capacity builders, AmeriCorps VISTA members work to advance the impact and sustainability of community organizations that serve all members of the community. Levi’s work at Ecosa is focused on expanding Ecosa’s project work in the Prescott region with implemented community designs that enhance the lives of all who live in the area. Ecosa is seeking new design projects that are community based – these can address neighborhood planning & renewal, alternative construction planning, low income housing, homelessness management, environmentally sensitive system designs, product design, etc. If you or someone you know is interested in initiating a design project with Ecosa, please contact Levi Mason at outreach@ecosa.org or call 928-541-1002.

The Importance of Immunization

VISTA Member Jennifer Gosnell

My name is Jennifer Gosnell and I am an AmeriCorps VISTA member with the Yavapai County VISTA Project.  My site is First Things First, which is a statewide organization that partners with parents, families and communities to make sure that all children, ages birth to age five years, are healthy and ready to succeed when they enter school. I received Bachelors of Science in Community Health Services from Ohio University in June 2011. With my background in public health, First Things First’s mission aligns with my goals that I acquired through my education.

In Yavapai County, the immunization rate is extremely low due to two primary reasons. One of them is that parents are afraid of autism because the media has publicized people’s opinion of the link between autism and vaccines instead of the research that proves there is no link. The second most common reason is because parents in the United States do not see the diseases that vaccines protect against anymore. These diseases still exist and without vaccines, there are and will be outbreaks and epidemics. Most parents that have not been exposed to someone with pertussis or measles do not think it is possible. Without the majority of people in certain communities vaccinating, the herd immunity that once existed, does not anymore. This means that if one person acquires a certain disease, many people will contract it because the majority of people are not vaccinated.

First Things First has many strategies that help dictate the needs and assets of the community they are serving. Under the strategy Parent Awareness, the Yavapai Region of First Things First has funds to promote a media piece to help raise awareness on immunization. I have conducted research since August to discover why parents were choosing not to immunize in Yavapai County, the rates of immunization, the education already being performed about immunization awareness and what type of media piece would reach the demographic of Yavapai County the best.

Immunization awareness is exceptionally important because people are not trusting healthcare providers and the outcome will be very deadly. The diseases that vaccines protect against can be serious or fatal. Infants have not developed a proper immune system and need their parents and child care providers to be immunized. They also need to be immunized as soon as they are old enough to help protect them. People need to trust the health care system and research instead of gossip from celebrities about how vaccines are unsafe.

VISTA Member Constance Howard Helps with Emergency Response Training

"Greeter" Tom Thurman redirects actor evacuees

 to get back in line and continue the radiation 

screening process.

More than 200 local responders participated in last week's four-day state-wide disaster exercise where VISTA member Constance Howard helped organize and helped out as an actor.  The scenario was detonation of a nuclear device in Phoenix and was designed to put demands on rural counties whose help would be needed.  "What a great opportunity to test public safety, " stated Capt. Sauntman, Paramedic and Training Officer with the Camp Verde Fire District and also a Fire Science Teacher at Camp Verde High School, where part of the exercise was held.

Denny Foulk, Yavapai County's new Emergency Manager, said, "It was quite an exercise to be involved in during my first month here.  Local hospitals, the health department, the Red Cross, Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) volunteers, and fire fighters all worked together."  The health department supported hospitals with supplies and volunteers, joined the Red Cross in registering evacuees for shelters, and worked with fire fighters to screen evacuees for radiation exposure. Playing the role of an evacuee actor going through screening and decontamination, local resident Lorna Murray commented that, "The firemen are very nice, very professional, and courteous."

Brian Supalla, the health department’s response coordinator, said the scenario would overwhelm any county and that “We knew we’d have to rely on our Medical Reserve Corps volunteers.  No way could we have done it without them."  Tom Thurman, District 2 Supervisor with the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors, participated in the exercise.  "Even though it's a rainy day – good turn out of volunteers.  This is a worst-case scenario, but we hope for the best and plan for the worst." As the exercise came to a close MRC volunteer Christine Schneider noted "I think it's great the community spirit of volunteers is alive and well in northern Arizona”. Information on non-medical and medical volunteer opportunities is available at www.yavapaihealth.com .