Champions of Change Blog

Making A Small Corner of the World a Little Better

Posted by Marissa Mikoy on August 17, 2012 at 3:34 PM EDT

Marissa Mikoy is being honored as a Champion of Change for her time and effort in AmeriCorps.

The year of service I dedicated to AmeriCorps truly set the course of my career. As my college experience was nearing its end, I found myself at a fork in the road with one arrow pointing to the corporate sector and the other towards a career dedicated to social justice. At 21, I wasn’t sure whether to follow my heart or my head. Looking back, I would not change a thing.

Sometime during my senior year of college, I realized that I wasn’t going to put my soon to be earned Business Administration and Management degree to use in the corporate sector. I knew my heart was not calling me to work in a for-profit organization. I had always been drawn to social justice work and spent a significant amount of time throughout college volunteering for various causes in Austin. My mentors and professors counseled me to find my place in the corporate sector, build a strong financial base then spend any extra time I had volunteering. I would then be able to fulfill my passion for service. It seemed like a practical solution, however, the plan still didn’t sit well with me. I reflected on my service experiences and just wasn’t sold on the idea that I could fulfill my service “fix” by volunteering when I had the time. When all of my friends from the business school were interviewing with Arthur Anderson, Price Waterhouse and Deloitte, I found myself applying for the AmeriCorps VISTA program.

In the summer of 1998, I went to work with an amazing team for the nonprofit, University Settlement in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I was given the opportunity to teach job readiness classes for individuals that were living in transitional housing and received government assistance to help them cover basic needs. I taught computer literacy classes as well as worked one on one to prepare them for the job market. This included job interview role-playing, instruction and coaching in how to write a cover letter and resume, coaching on “soft skills”, as well as in how to search for job opportunities. The impact I saw was immediate and amazing. I saw families gain stable employment with a sense of pride and confidence, slowly begin to transition out of temporary housing and ultimately begin a new life with their families. It hit me that I was a small part of the collective effort to help better someone’s life. Beyond that, I realized that education was the highest leverage tool in eradicating poverty and in transforming a community. After completing my experience with AmeriCorps, I knew without a doubt I wanted to dedicate my career to helping make my small corner of the world a little better.

Over the last 14 years, I have worked with various nonprofits in Washington, DC and in Dallas. My experiences have spanned from heading up an Even Start Family Literacy program in West Dallas, to raising over $1 million for local and national non-profits, to founding a bilingual early childhood program for under-resourced families in the Columbia Heights neighborhood in Washington, DC. Each one of my experiences has been fulfilling and inspiring. I feel very fortunate that AmeriCorps gave me the opportunity listen to my heart and follow my passion in social justice. I love the work I do and I am inspired on a daily basis.

I currently work in Dallas for the newly formed nonprofit, Teaching Trust and serve as the Director of Operations & Evaluation. Teaching Trust is an independent 501(c)3 organization singularly focused on transformational leadership in public education, so that all children can attend a school were the adults have the courage, commitment, and capacity to close the achievement gap. A central belief of the Teaching Trust is that high performing schools require leaders who are strong in instruction, the development of teachers, and organizational leadership. We teach those leaders to model the values and principles that are needed to insure schools have a culture of high expectations and achievement. By addressing instructional, campus, central office and policy leaders, Teaching Trust believes our vision of schools where talented professionals have the character and competence to ensure each student achieves at an extraordinary level is achievable.

At the Teaching Trust I am charged with developing an evaluation framework and system that will support our effort to measure the effectiveness of our program and to strengthen the program along the way. I am also developing all aspects of our human capital pipeline, inclusive of heading up the candidate selection process for the Master’s program.

I am honored to have been selected as a AmeriCorps Alumni White House Champion of Change.

Marissa Castro Mikoy is the Director of Operations and Evaluation for the Teaching Trust, an education reform and principal preparation non-profit.

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Fighting for Positive Change

Posted by Morgan Tracey on August 17, 2012 at 3:30 PM EDT

Morgan Tracey is being honored as a Champion of Change for her time and effort in AmeriCorps.

Although I graduated from AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps almost ten years ago, it seems like yesterday when I left small town Champion, Ohio with big dreams of serving others. Since my time in AmeriCorps, I have been a member of an elite Interagency Hotshot firefighting crew, I’ve graduated from law school and passed the Ohio bar, and I recently began training in the sport of skeleton with the hope of one day representing the United States in the Winter Olympic Games. People frequently ask me why I’ve chosen to pursue these diverse, challenging endeavors. My answer to this question is always the same. I pursue them because I want to take the path less traveled, and my experience in AmeriCorps gave me the courage to do so. Most importantly, AmeriCorps taught me following my heart could positively impact the lives of others. Whether sliding headfirst down a mile of ice at 90 miles per hour, or being the last line of defense between a wildfire and someone’s home, I’m fighting for positive change in my own communities.

An important part of AmeriCorps NCCC mission is to strengthen communities in which we work. In Blythe, CA we helped build twelve homes in which families could raise productive members of society. In Astoria, OR we built a multipurpose space for everything from meetings to disaster relief. In Pasadena, CA we inspired children and encouraged them to play together after school rather than sit in an empty house. In each and every community, we left it stronger than when we arrived.

Our community work was felt at a personal level as well. We inspired one another to be better teammates and better leaders. We learned to embrace change and encourage it in others.To this day I look with admiration at the accomplishments of my ten teammates since graduating AmeriCorps. We entered as young adults, some directly out of high school. Today we are doctors, lawyers, world class athletes, community leaders, and academics. My teammates have competed in World Cups for the US Women’s Rugby Team. They have volunteered their time teaching in Africa. They have earned Masters degrees and Ph.D.s while working on important community health initiatives. Individually we have done amazing things in our own unique ways, but we will always be united in our desire to effect positive change in our communities.

Being an elite athlete is a selfish undertaking. We spend hours, weeks, months, and years training for just a few moments of glory on the international stage. When I began my pursuit of an Olympic berth, I had to consider that most people will never make it to the Olympics and that I may be one of them. This would have been paralyzing were it not for the lessons I learned in AmeriCorps. I can lead by example. I can inspire positivity. I can dedicate myself to excellence. Most importantly, I can commit to leaving my sport a better place than when I arrived. Similarly to while in AmeriCorps and leaving our communities better than when we arrived. If I do these things, I will succeed.

I’m thankful every day for my time in AmeriCorps. It is the most important thing I have ever done. Without those experiences I would never have the courage to take the path less traveled. I would never have met the people who pushed me to embrace change while inspiring change in others. If this is what ten people can accomplish in ten short years, what will the future hold? And one day, as I dream of standing in front of a stadium packed with thousands, watching the American flag being raised as the National Anthem plays, it dawns on me. Not even an Olympic stadium can hold the 775,000 talented, inspiring, AmeriCorps alumni whose ranks I’m proud to be a part of.

Morgan Tracey is currently part of the United States National Skeleton Program training at the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center with her sights on Sochi Russia and Pyeongchang, South Korea.

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Integrating Service Experiences and Career Choices

Posted by Nicole Trimble on August 17, 2012 at 3:26 PM EDT

Nicole Trimble is being honored as a Champion of Change for her time and effort in AmeriCorps.

“You only have one precious life filled with a lot of options. The only thing you really need to do is leave this world a better place than you found it.”

I heard this often from my dad as a young, energetic girl growing up in suburban Cleveland, trying to find my place in the world. I should have known that my path to a fulfilling life and career would be through heeding his advice and finding my way through service.

My own story started as a child rooted in a family and faith community that valued service. I was raised with a belief in the reciprocal nature of service and that we all need to serve and be served in order for a society to function. In fact, the legacy of service in my family through the military and the Civilian Conservation Corps helped construct my belief that we all have a part to play in building and strengthening this great nation. I chose national service and to join AmeriCorps for many reasons but primarily because I love my country. What I did not know at the time, was how much I would be forever changed.

Service to my country through AmeriCorps was active participatory citizenship that would never allow me to look at my community and country from the sidelines again. My first year of service was as a Jesuit Volunteer providing legal services in Yakima, Washington. I was so inspired by the new AmeriCorps program that I enrolled for a second year of service as an AmeriCorps Leader launching ASPIRA AmeriCorps to provide opportunities to Latino youth. AmeriCorps inspired me to integrate my service experiences into my career choices, and also seeded my deep belief that providing all Americans opportunities to serve is a very important element building essential human connections and maintaining a strong democracy.

Although my AmeriCorps experience was about serving others, it provided me far greater gifts than I gave. I experienced that true self-interest is mutual interest. I understood for the first time how deeply we are all connected. We give and we receive. We serve and we are served. We are kind and kindness returns to us. This can be very difficult to live and remember in our current culture where we have to walk into the headwinds of cynicism at every turn. But I have committed to taking my AmeriCorps lessons with me into each professional experience and it has paid off. I have been blessed with more fulfilling career than I could have ever imagined and I owe much of it to national service.

I am currently responsible for Coinstar, Inc.’s Corporate Responsibility program. Last year after the tornados in Joplin, Missouri, I asked a crew of employees volunteering with the clean-up which organization in Joplin was doing the most impactful work so we could partner. The manager leading the initiative said “There is an amazing group here called AmeriCorps. Have you heard of AmeriCorps?”

Yes. I HAVE heard of AmeriCorps. I am AmeriCorps. And I am proud.

Nicole Trimble is the Director of Corporate Responsibility at Coinstar, Inc.

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Building a Community Organization to Improve Education

Posted by Rhonda Ulmer on August 17, 2012 at 3:24 PM EDT

Rhonda Ulmer is being honored as a Champion of Change for her time and effort in AmeriCorps.

As a mother of three it has been a challenge for me to balance a life of children, work and school. It was difficult to incorporate them into my daily work and I wanted to find a way to set a great example for them. I got that chance in 2004, when I successfully made a rewarding career decision to join Volunteer Maryland (VM), an AmeriCorps program of the Governor’s Office.

Serving in AmeriCorps through VM provided me with the skills to not only help myself and family, but an entire school community. When a needs assessment was conducted of my children’s elementary school, the results were apparent why some children in our school were being left behind. The survey results revealed parents need of basic needs, educational resources and skills to help themselves to in turn help their children academically succeed.

As founder of the Van Bokkelen Family Network, the program provides local community resources such as GED, health, and housing education for parent in the school. Through the dedication and commitment of the network parent volunteer leaders, teachers, and community partners; the school is no longer on the Maryland State Department of Education takeover list, and the school has successfully sustained itself for over three years.

With the support of teachers and the community, Van Bokkelen Elementary families have healthier lifestyles, students have strengthened their math, science, history and other academic skills, and the school has become the hub of the community. PTA membership has grown significantly from 25 inactive members when I started to a larger network of active and engaged members who all help the school continue to make substantial yearly progress. The Van Bokkelen Family Network has led to a national PTA award for the group andthe model has been used to assist other troubled schools.

The huge success of my project inspired me to expand my vision of making every parent potential a reality across the State of Maryland. In 2008 after receiving the Eli J. Segal AmeriCorps Alums Entrepreneurship Award, I founded the University for Parents, a community organization that provides parents throughout Maryland with the skills and resources to help their family succeed. The organization helps mentor and educate parents with the skills they need to help their children be successful in school. I continue to share the Van Bokkelen story as a testimony that low performing schools can close the achievement gap through parental involvement. By educating, encouraging and motivating parents to succeed as a family, this becomes a win-win for the school and the community. It was not until my basic needs were met as a parent, was I able to help my children. I would be able to relate and lead by example for other parents through my own personal experience.

In 2004, I was unsure if I made the right decision to join AmeriCorps, but deep down in my heart I knew I had the desire to give and talents to bring out the best in others. My AmeriCorps service helped my dream for years to start a community organization that provides educational resources for parents come true.

Rhonda Ulmer is the founding director of University for Parents (UfP), a community organization that provides parents with the tools and resources to help their children succeed in school.

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Service in the Private Sector

Posted by Seth Marbin on August 17, 2012 at 3:20 PM EDT

Seth Marbin is being honored as a Champion of Change for his time and effort in AmeriCorps.

AmeriCorps, and in particular City Year, profoundly shaped my personal values and helped clarify my life’s mission: to serve, and to help others serve. City Year also provided me with a toolkit for social change, and access to a diverse, inspiring and supportive community of change agents. It helped refine my theory of change, which involves leveraging both the private and public sectors’ resources for social good. I also met my future wife and amazing friends, mentors and heroes through City Year.

My AmeriCorps service journey began with the Youth Volunteer Corps of Corvallis, Oregon, where I grew up. I spent the summer after high school leading and mentoring youth on community service projects. We explored environmental science while installing erosion cloth on the banks of the river, learned about food insecurity preparing meals at a soup kitchen, and practiced event management by coordinating a city-wide skateboard competition. I gained the understanding that service is a powerful way to learn more about oneself and one’s community and break down social barriers.

I signed on for a second AmeriCorps term as a VISTA with the University of Puerto Rico in Ponce, with the goal of helping to improve literacy rates. Soon after we began, a major hurricane hit the island; we focused on disaster relief efforts for the next few months. Each day was an adventure: serving as a translator for doctors providing emergency aid in shelters, working on an assembly line to bottle safe drinking water, and helping coordinate delivery of relief supplies to remote towns with roads that had been washed away. I learned how to remain flexible to meet community and human needs, experienced profound kindness and compassion by many, and understood why it is hard for people to care about literacy when a blue FEMA tarp is their roof and they are unsure where the next meal is coming from.

Next I served in Seattle as an AmeriCorps Promise Fellow with City Year. I helped create and pilot the service-learning and leadership-development program, Young Heroes, which engaged thousands of youth nationwide.

As a public and private sector partnership, City Year’s model led to me to explore the role of the corporate sector in social change, which brought me in 2006 to Google, already a well-known global brand. Today, as a member of Google’s Social Responsibility Team, I help to encourage and enable employees around the world to use their skills, talents and resources in service and philanthropy. Daily, I use skills I developed in AmeriCorps as I meet with employees who want to make a positive difference and are seeking guidance, support and resources. I also put my experience to work when founding Googleserve, an annual tradition in which Googlers around the world join together in community service projects. Volunteering together helps to revitalize and strengthen our connections with the cities and towns in which we live and work, and also brings us closer together as a global team. Now in its 6th year, Googleserve has engaged more than 10,000 Googlers in over 40 countries.

I’m honored to be joining the Champions of Change community, and I wouldn't be here if not for incredible family, friends, and colleagues who have inspired and mentored me along my journey. I’m grateful for ongoing opportunities to give back. As a proud AmeriCorps alum, I will continue to help support and encourage others to be the change we seek in the world.

Seth Marbin is a Program Manager on the Social Resposibility Team at Google.

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Turn A Problem Into Your Passion

Posted by Shonak Patel on August 17, 2012 at 3:00 PM EDT

Shonak Patel is being honored as a Champion of Change for his time and effort in AmeriCorps.

“Do what you like, like what you do.” These are the simple, yet powerful, words I heard from Life Is Good co-founder John Jacobs in the summer of 2011 while participating in the MassChallenge startup accelerator. After listening to Jacobs speak I couldn’t help but reflect on the experiences that got me to what I perceived to be a place of privilege, where I was pursuing a passion, tackling a real problem, and effectively blurring the lines between work and play with my first start-up, Swellr.

I grew up in Andover, MA in a family full of entrepreneurs and educators. Innovation, curiosity, and a desire to eliminate problems through creative thinking is in my blood. My whole life, I have been presented with every opportunity to try, to fail, to learn, to change, and to be inspired. The impossible has always seemed possible and that is solely a result of all the great teachers and learning experiences I have been exposed to along the way. As a teenager, I came to realize not everyone is fortunate enough to grow up in an environment that nurtures their confidence and encourages them to take on new challenges. As an incoming freshman, I made it my purpose to leverage entrepreneurship to help address societal needs and in doing so unlock the potential in others.

After working in the investment world for 4 years, I left my job in 2009 to serve with the Louisiana Delta Service Corps in New Orleans, LA. During my term of service, with NONDC, I had the privilege of working in one of the city’s most underserved — yet culturally rich neighborhoods — Central City. It was an experience defined by listening, observing, and identifying complicated challenges facing the community members I served. I supported a long-time resident in an arduous fight with the City to undo an erroneous property tax judgment. I listened to children playing basketball on 4th street tragically explain that a fear of being shot was the reason they weren’t using the beautiful new courts across the street at A.L. Davis Playground. I surveyed residents, planted trees, sat in on community meetings, and cleared blighted lots. I was quickly exposed to a diverse and complicated set of issues, brought on by the vicious cycle of poverty, which had trapped residents of this neighborhood, young and old, over and over again. AmeriCorps changed my life in helping me fundamentally shift the way I approach solving problems, from a prescriptive approach to a disruptive approach. AmeriCorps taught me that big, real, problems require big, systemic, change. This, as I have come to learn through experience, is the essence of innovation and entrepreneurship.

How could we disrupt the cycle of poverty? I began to challenge myself, and those around me, to imagine a world where everyone had access to a diverse set of educational resources and ongoing learning opportunities. What if everyone was equipped with the same support network and experiences I had been granted to continually discover, learn, and create new things? My AmeriCorps experience gave me the renewed clarity I needed to pursue this new vision, a vision for a world where the concepts of technology-enabled education, life-long learning, and creation are front and center. As a co-founder of Swellr, I diligently worked with my co-founders to find a new way to fund more educational resources into local classrooms. While this venture could not sustain itself in the longer term, I was inspired by the humbling power of failure to teach and considered myself once again lucky to have had another incredible opportunity to grow as a leader. Currently, as a co-founder of Gather Education, I am once again working with a great team focused on making on-line learning experiences more engaging, more collaborative, and more accessible to teachers and learners everywhere.

This is how I got here. My learning experiences as a child, in service, and as an entrepreneur have taught me to inspire curiosity, a certain “need to know”, in others. I have learned to not fear failure, but to rather fear the status quo. Failure at its core means you are trying something new after all. I’ve been blessed to do what I love, and ultimately love what I do. Now, my focus is on helping others find their way to the same. I encourage everyone to find a big problem that impacts you or others around you, then turn it into a passion, and then push hard to turn it into progress. This is service. I promise you’ll never look back.

Shonak Patel is the co-founder of Gather Education.

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