Siena Americorps VISTA

Roughly 1.5 million people live in the Capital District of New York State, many of them in the inner cities of Albany, Troy, and Schenectady. Annually, the Center for Academic Community Engagement (ACE) at Siena College, selects 30 individuals from across the country to serve with nonprofits who are working to address socio-economic challenges in the region; these challenges include gaps in education, healthcare, housing, criminal justice, and economic development. Our AmeriCorps VISTAs fight poverty by working alongside community members to build capacity and create sustainable, local solutions.

AmeriCorps VISTA is a 12-month commitment to 40 hours per week of service at a nonprofit organization in the Capital District of New York. Schedules depend on the operating hours of sites, although most organizations follow the conventional business hours of Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm. As a nonprofit organization, VISTA sites are likely to ask members to work the occasional fundraiser on an evening or weekend. In addition, the Siena VISTA program will occasionally ask members to participate in various on campus events throughout the year, including the Engage for Change conference and Mayor's Day of Service, which ultimately enriches participants' experience as a VISTA. These events count towards VISTA's working hours and allow them to take flex time at a later date for any time exceeding their 40 hour work week.

What VISTAs Do

What makes AmeriCorps VISTA unique among other service-oriented programs is its focus on capacity building projects through indirect service. To explain what indirect service looks like, we often use the example of a soup kitchen. While direct volunteers are greeting and serving guests, it is the indirect volunteers who are doing the behind the scenes work work to make sure that everything comes together. In this scenario, indirect service includes recruiting the volunteers needed to run the event, coordinating the food donations, reaching out to members of the community to notify them when and where the meal will be served, etc. Indirect service is equally as important as direct service for nonprofit organizations to function successfully and helps VISTAs to develop transferable skills that can be utilized throughout their career. 

We have a cohort of VISTAs dispersed throughout the cities of Albany, Troy, and Schenectady working on different capacity building projects at a variety of nonprofit organizations. These projects may be in one of four categories; resource development, volunteer management, program development, and community outreach. After an applicant is accepted to the program, they are given a specific project description. 

benefits

• Supportive cohort of peers
• Ten free meals a week at Siena College
• Loan deferment for qualified student loans
• 10 paid personal and 10 paid sick days
• Siena Gym/Library/Career and Internship Center Access
• CDTA bus pass
• Non-competitive eligibility for federal employment
• $6,345.00 Education Award upon successful completion of full-service term