Hamilton College's Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center has received an AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) grant to hire two Hamilton graduates who will engage in two community outreach programs in Utica for the next year. Both VISTA workers will assist with projects focused on increasing the number of Hamilton students working in the community through service-learning courses, federal work-study programs and as volunteers.
Amanda Siepiola, who graduated from Hamilton two years ago, will focus on ensuring the success of the SHINE (Students Helping in the Naturalization of Elders) Project. This program is designed to help immigrants and refugees over the age of 50 in the Mohawk Valley learn English language skills, become more actively engaged in their community and pursue U.S. citizenship. Project SHINE is another grant received by the Levitt Center and is a replication of a project originally developed at Temple University. Project SHINE is now active on 16 campuses across the nation. Hamilton College applied in partnership with Utica College.
Hamilton College will maintain an outreach office at the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees for this program. The SHINE Project will operate at other sites as well including ESL classrooms at Madison-Oneida BOCES. Siepiola, the VISTA Worker, will also develop Hamilton's capacity to provide one-on-one tutoring for senior citizens at community sites such as churches, synagogues and mosques.
Charles Francis, a 2004 Hamilton graduate who will live in the Cornhill section of Utica, will dedicate his efforts to the Community School-Cornhill Caring Community project which is part of the larger Communities that Care (CTC) program. CTC is designed to promote effective collaboration between schools, health and human service agencies, government, law enforcement, local business, faith organizations, and the community. The Community School is the Martin Luther King Elementary School and Francis' focus under the VISTA funding will include after-school programs and other services provided in the neighborhood surrounding the school.
This fall six to eight Hamilton classes will include service learning components that will require students to engage in various ways in both the SHINE and/or Community School projects. More than 30 students will be working on the SHINE Project at Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees or at BOCES ESL sites. Other students will travel to Utica to tutor or mentor at Martin Luther King Elementary School, JCTOD Outreach, Believer's Miracle Deliverance Church, St. Martin de Porres, and the Neighborhood Network Computer Center within Martin Luther King School for the Community School Project.
Judith Owens-Manley, Associate Director of Community Research for the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center, will direct both the SHINE and the Community School Cornhill Caring Community projects. She will also serve as the VISTA project supervisor. Charley Francis will begin work on August 2, and Amanda Siepiola will begin on August 16.
New York Campus Compact, a coalition of more than 50 colleges and universities promoting active citizenship as an aim of higher education, is the agency through which Hamilton has been awarded this funding. Hamilton's Levitt Center is committed to creating opportunities for students to become involved in public affairs.
