New AmeriCorps Members Begin Serving

Social Capital Inc. has recently been joined by nineteen new AmeriCorps Members. These new members have been placed throughout the Woburn, Dorchester, Lynn, Fall River, and Milford, communities, helping several different organizations expand their services to the community during this time of need.

AmeriCorps is the national service program through which some 75,000 individuals provide a year of service to local communities; the program will be growing substantially in the coming years through the Kennedy Serve America Act. AmeriCorps is managed in Massachusetts by the Massachusetts Service Alliance.

There are seven Americorps members currently serving in the Woburn Area.

Michael Cooper serves is serving as an Outreach and Technology Coordinator for the SCI Woburn office. He manages the "Week in Woburn" eNews, serves as webmaster for the SCI Woburn website and operates various other web technologies for other SCI sites. He has a B.A. in Philosophy from Furman University, an M.A. in Philosophy from Texas Tech University, and is currently finishing his M.S. in Ethics and Public Policy from Suffolk University.

Annabel Osburn is serving as an Outreach and Technology Coordinator for the North Suburban YMCA. She recruits and organizes volunteers for various events at the YMCA, as well as publicizing those events. She moved to the area from Kansas, where she graduated with a B.A. in Social Sciences with emphases in History and Geography from Emporia State University.

Jennifer Burns serves as the Outreach and Technology Coordinator for Nu Path, Inc., formerly CMARC. She will be working towards developing a strong volunteer program for them throughout the course of her ten months of service. Jennifer is a recent graduate of the University of Pittsburgh where she earned a double degree in Marketing and Psychology.

Bridget Hanagan is serving as a Youth Leadership Coordinator at the Boys and Girls Club. Her main responsibility will be to engage youth in service learning activities through the SCI Woburn Youth Council and other community service initiatives. Bridget is a recent graduate from Simmons College in Boston where she graduated with a B.A in International Relations and Economics.

Jacqueline Ekdahl serves as the Youth Leadership Coordinator for the Boys and Girls Club of Woburn, and will be starting an SCI Youth Council in Burlington. She will also be helping to create and run other programs within the Boys and Girls Club of Woburn. She has a B.A. in International Relations from Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

Megan Gambale is beginning her second year of service with the Boys and Girls Club of Woburn as a Youth Leadership Coordinator. Megan will continue to support the SCI Woburn Youth Council and looks forward to continuing to create more opportunities for young people to help out in their community. Megan graduated Boston College with a B.A. in Elementary Education and Human Development.

Shea Pugh serves as a returning Youth Leadership Coordinator for SCI at the North Suburban YMCA. She graduated in 2008 with a BS in Family and Consumer Sciences from George Fox University. She has lived in Woburn for a year after moving from Seattle, WA for her first year of AmeriCorps service.

There is still one AmeriCorps position open at the SCI Woburn office.

There are six Americorps members serving in Dorchester this year.  Lauren Ames at the Dorchester site says "I hope to have more than 100 people using the website at any one time by the beginning of October, and collectively Lauren, Scot, and I hope to have recruited 30 volunteers in the next two weeks.  Generally, we plan to complete the SCI AmeriCorps goals in addition to significantly increasing web traffic to the mydorchester site (we would like over 5,000 hits).  Completing these goals will involve changing the website significantly and targeting new services that volunteers could provide at 450 Washington.  Personally, I hope to get to know more people in the Dorchester community and build my recruitment and technical skills."

There are three Americorps members serving the community of Lynn.  LaTosha says "On top of that, I really just want to make an impact at Girls Inc.  I learned from talking to my supervisor, Catherine, that I'll be working with a program called Part of the Solution.  And one of my main tasks will be to recruit more males for the group.  I definitely feel up for the challenge and can't wait for this year to begin."

In Fall river we have two Americorps members.  Deborah is looking forward to her service: "Over the course of my service there are many things I would like to accomplish, but my main goal revolves around www.myfallriver.org. Over the summer usership decreased, I would like to increase the usership throughout the city. I want to get more organizations using the site and want to present it more to familes as a way to find out what is happening within the city. I would like to have training sessions with individual organization to show them how to use the site effectively. I would like for the site to become the first stop for residents when looking for information about the city."

Jennifer is excited to be the Americorps member serving at the Wayside Youth and Family Support Network in the Greater Milford area.  She says "There are so many things I wish to accomplish this year both professionally and personally. First of all I decided to do a year of service to dedicate myself to help the needs of others. Social Capital Inc. gives one a unique opportunity to work with youth in such a way that allows one to help better the lives of youth in a particular community by giving them the recourses to become good leaders and active citizens but also allows their AmeriCorps members to grow as leaders as well. I hope I can accomplish all of AmeriCorps, Social Capital Inc., and my host site goals so that I can see both the youth of Milford and myself gain from this great opportunity. Most importantly I want this experience to be rewarding for not only myself but my future youth council. . . Volunteering throughout high school and college really changed my life and made me become much more aware and knowledgeable about the world around me and I only hope that I can bring this awareness to some of the young people in Milford. Professionally, I hope this opportunity will give me more confidence and knowledge of networking and how to conduct meetings and events."