Tag: 2021-2022

The recent wave of school boards nationwide removing books from curricula (and even from libraries themselves) has prompted me to reflect further on the significance of MLK Read for Peace. This service project connects community volunteers with kindergarten through fifth-grade classrooms to read age-appropriate books and honor the legacy of Dr. King. Montana Campus Compact…

Before AmeriCorps, I was a high school substitute teacher with interest of gaining more professional development and career readiness within higher education. The education benefits and network provided by AmeriCorps was my initial motivating purpose, however, after being three weeks into my term, I now feel beyond appreciative of the precious privileges that serving others…

My name is Andrew Mades. I began serving as a VISTA member at the National Center for Appropriate Technologies (NCAT) in November 2021 and will serve until November 2022. A historian by training, I studied in Massachusetts before moving to in Berlin, Germany in 2018. There I completed a master’s degree in project management and…

I made hard decisions and big leaps in 2021 that led me to an unexpected call to serve. I wasn’t sure what I would do next, until this opportunity presented itself. Even though I was scared, even though it was out of my comfort zone, I ventured out to Poplar, Montana to serve for a…

This is my second year of service at the University of Montana Food Pantry. This is also the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic, and things are not looking up for the majority of people- not even close. Everywhere I look, people are struggling to make ends meet. Homelessness is on the rise, people are…

MTCC AmeriCorps at Great Falls College MSU operates out of the Office of Student Engagement and oversees the Great Falls College MSU Food Pantry. Students are welcome to find me for food, hygiene products, and meaningful human interaction, all freely given with no strings attached. Once in a while, I throw in some words of…

I grew up on a quiet little street in the coal mine region of northeast Pennsylvania that dead ended at railroad tracks. The coal cars would wobble and rock as they shook the ground below me. I would rush to collect coal that toppled from the overflowing cars. The deep black anthracite would come in…

I came out of the closet when I was 16 in a Wisconsin town that did not embrace its LGBTQ+ community. In many instances, it outright rejected those who came out of the closet. Fortunately, I have an overwhelmingly supportive family, and I only lost a couple of friends as I embraced my identity as…

These past two years have been unlike anything I have ever experienced before. My mind would have never been able to conceive what has occurred in this world during these past two years. At first it was wonderful to rest and just be still. Then, life quickly became a mundane redundant routine. Wake up. Shower.…

The inside of my wrist is tattooed with a pencil. Cliché, perhaps, for an English major, but more important to me now than it was when I got it in 2019. It was the start of my Junior year, and I was reeling from an Emily Dickinson poetry class that had shattered my world and proved to…

My first full week of VISTA service began with the State of Montana Arboretum (SMA) Committee Retreat in the Lubrecht Experimental Forest, roughly forty minutes from the University campus. The Committee of a dozen members spent the day working on a three year vision for the State of Montana Arboretum.

Have you ever had a feeling of uncertainty? Like you’re struggling to find who you are and what you are called to do? If so, I am right there with you. Society expects us from an early age to know who and what we want to be when we grow up, but I have come…

There is a bright yellow sign hanging in the middle of the offices of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) – Missoula branch. It reads: “NO HATE. NO FEAR. REFUGEES ARE WELCOME HERE. #ChooseHumanity.” This sign lays out the perfect structure for me to use for self-reflection on my first month of service as a Montana Campus Compact…

Close to reaching my third month of service as an AmeriCorps VISTA with the Montana Campus Compact (MTCC), volunteering during the 2021/2022 year is a significant time to serve. I am so glad/grateful that federal programs and organizations like this one exist. With everything going on across the country, what the United States of America…

Post-grad school life is awkward and consciously humbling, in some good ways and other much harder ways. Can I afford to live alone? No. Can I even afford to live above ground, in somewhere other than a basement? Most definitely not. But am I equipped with years of therapy under my belt, a good sense…

I’ve worked seasonally for quite awhile now and must say I do really enjoy the lifestyle. Getting to spend time in different places and constantly pursuing what I am passionate about are a few of the perks. Last summer however, due to the pandemic providing limited options I ended up working a seasonal job that…