Three HPU graduates hired to serve as AmeriCorps VISTAs on campus
Pictured above are this year’s AmeriCorps VISTAs serving at HPU. From left: Brittaney McClure, Sami Paterno and Jenna Rosenbloom. Photo by highpoint.edu
By Alexis Ancel// News Editor
As part of the AmeriCorps Volunteers In Service to America (VISTA) program, three VISTAs have been selected and hired to serve the community through High Point University. After applying through AmeriCorps nationally, the HPU post-grads chosen to be this year’s VISTAs are Sami Paterno, Brittaney McClure and Jenna Rosenbloom.
The AmeriCorps VISTA program is run through an association of college presidents called North Carolina Campus Compact. The VISTA program was brought to campus by the chair of this association, HPU president Nido Qubein. This is the fourth consecutive year that HPU has hosted students through the VISTA program.
These three VISTAs are on loan to HPU from Campus Compact, while 20 vistas are hosted at different schools throughout the state. Elon University, Guilford College, Duke University and various other schools are involved with the program as well, but most schools only have one VISTA and HPU is the only school with three.
Each of the three VISTAs serves a different role on HPU’s campus and in the High Point community. They also have an individual area of focus; McClure and Rosenbloom work to increase food access while Paterno is focusing on education.
Only a month into the school year, the VISTAs have made making progress toward their goals. McClure, who is also focusing on food access, is working with West End Ministries and is able to build on the work done by previous VISTAs. Last year, the VISTA program, in a partnership with Aramark, reclaimed extra food from HPU’s dining halls and brought over 20,000 pounds of food into the community through Open Door Ministries.
McClure, who focuses on food security in the Washington Street neighborhood, has been working to establish community gardens that provide fresh, healthy food to the people in the area. She has been involved with all aspects of this project from developing interest and neighborhood outreach, to finding garden plots, helping to then the gardens and more.
“I am thankful that I can partner with these organizations and help to increase food security and awareness in the High Point area,” McClure said.
Paterno works primarily with the Washington Street neighborhood as well, but her efforts have been in the field of education. She has been working with PNAC, an after school program that focuses on four pillars: physical activity, nutrition, academics and character building. “This after school program brings in approximately 35 kids and gives them a chance to work on homework, play with others, and develop skills based on the four pillars,” Paterno said. Paterno will also be working closely with the HPU Community Writing Center by connecting with students from Kirkman Park Elementary School on guided reading and writing skills three days per week.
In addition to their individual areas of focus in the High Point community, part of their job description includes encouraging civic engagement and working to form connections between the High Point and HPU communities. As Joe Blosser, director of service learning and overseer of the program, explained, “Their job is to connect the university students to the communities they live in.”
The program works so that the VISTAs are involved with both the High Point and the HPU communities by doing things like working with the Bonner leader students, helping with the MLK day of service and helping to establish connections between the High Point community and different school organizations.
“It is amazing to see the High Point community in a different way than I did as a student,” Paterno said.
The VISTAs have also worked with Exercise Science majors, which allows these students to apply what they are learning in the classroom to real world situations in a way that benefits both the students and the community.
The VISTAs work toward the solutions to these issues in a variety of ways, but their main objective is working toward long-term solutions so that when the year is up, the community can support itself. “Everything that they do needs to be sustainable,” Blosser said. “When they leave, we don’t need the VISTAs anymore because the programs are up and running.”
This job requires time and dedication with a typical work week of approximately 50 hours.
“These are three full-time employees that are funded, housed, fed and resourced by HPU give about 65 hundred hours of service to our city each year,” Blosser said.
In addition to the more hands-on work, the VISTAs also do a great deal of capacity building work behind the scenes. This includes organizing, building spreadsheets, developing leadership workshops and eventually preparing others to do the work as well.
“So far my experience with this job has been wonderful, from the partners I have on campus to sitting and talking with the leaders of the community gardens and getting to know them on a personal level,” McClure said.
Though they are only here for one year, these three VISTAs are dedicated to making a lasting difference in the community. “I want students, faculty and our community to know how passionate and driven the VISTAs are to create change and make a difference,” Blosser said.