"The start to a better world is our belief that it is possible." --Katherine Shaw

I am one of several AmeriCorps members currently serving at the South Oakland Shelter (SOS) in Lathrup Village, Michigan. We serve in various capacities to support the SOS mission of ­­­­ providing temporary shelter and supportive programs to assist individuals in making the transition from homelessness to independent living.

My first month of service has been an exciting whirlwind. I have adjusted to the structure of our program and am becoming acquainted with the resources available in Oakland County. I have participated in a Community Resource Day, acting as a representative for the South Oakland Shelter. This event was greatly beneficial, as program participants and other community members were connected to resources in a central location, and I was able to explore other agencies and display our services.

Much of my time is spent conducting intakes, assisting clients with their transition to shelter, establishing goals, and connecting clients with community resources that may assist them in achieving those goals. I meet with clients regularly to discuss their needs and what can be done to address them, whether it may be a referral to another agency or a program provided by SOS.

While much frustration can stem from a lack of adequate resources or the difficulty of the job market, I have been finding great joy in the connection I am making with my clients and their pride in small successes. Providing support and encouragement for clients during their stay has been rewarding thus far and I cannot wait to see what this year of service has in store for me!

Best wishes in your service,

Katie

New year, new challenges.

My name is Melissa Grant and I'm the Program Director for Michigan's Campaign to End Homelessness AmeriCorps Program. While this blog is for the thoughts of my members and not my own, I felt compelled to talk a bit about the start of our new program year and some of the things we have in the works.

Our new members began officially on October 24th, save for Corey Saylor, who returned for a second year of service and started a bit earlier. I'm pleased to share that Corey will be serving as our LeaderCorps representative for the 2011-2012 year. If you'd like more information about LeaderCorps members and their greater role in National Service, check out their blog.

October is an incredibly frantic month for me as I plan orientation and try to balance the needs of my new members and site supervisors. Orientation also makes me nervous. I have to select what information is important enough to cram into two and a half days of intensive training and what can be reserved for later; I have to hold a good event in a decent venue while still being cognizant of our small budget; and I have to teach a group of strangers with radically different levels and styles of learning. Some years, orientation is a runaway success; other years, not so much.

I'm happy to say that this year's event was overall quite successful. This year's group of members is impressive in their level of intelligence and ability to dialog with me. I received some great ideas on how to tweak things for the future and also got some ideas on things I had never considered. Idea sharing, I think, is one of the unsung virtues of involvement in a National Service program such as ours. I have one way of doing things, one way of thinking, one way of interpreting; thanks to my members, our program can improve because we now have 20 different ways of thinking through things.


Now that orientation has drawn to a close and things are returning to a more manageable pace, there are a few other things of note coming up for our program. First, we're in the midst of re-competing for our federal funding this year. If you're not aware, AmeriCorps programs such as ours are federally funded; if we apply for competitive funding and receive it, we have guaranteed funding for three years. The program year that just began is the last year of our first three year cycle and so writing a new federal grant has been another task of mine this autumn. We should know toward the end of this month whether or not we've made the cut at the state level and will be invited to apply on the federal level for funding. I believe strongly in our program and the service our members provide, but I'm also a worrier and so I wonder about our prospects. As I've gotten older, I've learned to temper my irrational paranoia some and try to be cautiously optimistic when it comes to such things and so that will be my mantra until we find out next year whether or not we received the money. Deep breath and...ahh...cautious optimism.

We won't find out about funding until May 2012 so let us speak of more immediate things. The AmeriCorps Member Celebration hosted by MCSC will be happening at the Lansing Center on November 17th this year. The Member Celebration is a great one-day event for Michigan AC members, giving them the opportunity to network with members from other programs and attend professional development workshops. For whatever reason, our program has usually had a poor turnout at the event but this year we have a decently sized group going. I'm doubly pleased because this year, we'll finally have a picture in the slideshow! For those not in the know, MCSC has a slideshow that plays during the even featuring photos of members in action. Because of our program's nature and privacy concerns, our members can't exactly take action shots of their daily service. This year, I made sure to get a photo of everyone standing on the Capitol steps after our tour.

If you'd like to see the photo and won't be present at Member Celebration, head on over to our Facebook page and "like" us! One of my goals for this year is to greatly increase our social media presence (I refuse to Twitter though) and one of the ways we'll be doing this is through the Facebook page.

I believe I've prattled on enough and so would like to sign off by saying thank you to all of our program's supporters and the wonderful members that make our program possible. Here is to an excellent year of service!