For the past three summers, I worked as Summer Reads AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) for the Minnesota Literacy Council in St Paul, Minnesota. AmeriCorps VISTA is a national, federally-funded program that provides volunteers to nonprofit organizations and public agencies that are helping eradicate poverty in their local communities. Summer Reads is a “program that brings literacy mentors to children in grades K-4 from low-income families for eight weeks every summer. Summer Reads members are placed in schools, libraries and community programs across the state to help children improve their literacy skills and fight the summer slide.” (Minnesota Literacy Council). During my time as a Summer Reads AmeriCorps VISTA, I served at three different sites each summer: 1) Boys & Girls Club- East Side (Summer 2017), 2) Hale Elementary (Summer 2018), and 3) Rondo Community Library (Summer 2019). I, also, served as an Outreach Specialist for two of these summers where I overlooked all 60+ VISTAs working across the state and provided peer-mentoring and support for them online and in-person.  

 

Working as a Summer Reads AmeriCorps VISTA allowed me to meet Level 4 of the Teams section in the Leadership competency, because it helped me develop a leadership philosophy to guide future collaborations within groups. As mentioned before, as an Outreach Specialist, I was responsible for guiding and mentoring our summer cohort of Summer Reads VISTAs throughout their term of service ensuring that they fulfilled their duties at their sites. Although they worked in different locations across the state with their site partners, the VISTAs serving in the Twin Cities metro area came together at the end of each week to check-in with us and receive In-Service Trainings. This is where the VISTAs worked collaboratively to analyze their work at their sites, determine their areas of success and improvement, and create an action plan for their upcoming weeks. Through my work with these VISTAs, I learned to prioritize community building when working with a team. In our case, there was a huge disconnect between our VISTAs members, because they worked at different sites and only saw each other once a week. So, we made community building one of our main efforts which made our time working together smoother. The relationships built between our VISTA members created a sense of belonging in them which engaged them more with our team efforts. It also motivated them to support and encourage each other more, especially during difficult situations. There were many other lessons that I learned from this experience, but my biggest takeaways about working with a team were the following: find common ground between your team members and build rapport with them from the start, set clear goals for yourself and your team and build your ideas around that, keep constant communication between the members of your team and make sure nothing is “lost in translation” (especially when working with big groups of people), use each other’s strengths to work as a team, and always be prepared. 

 

I still have a lot to learn about working with teams that don’t meet face-to-face regularly. However, my experience in this position will make it easier for me to collaborate with other people regardless of the situation, whether it’s in an academic setting or not. 

 

Below is a picture of the 2018 Summer Reads AmeriCorps VISTA cohort. I also attached one of the guide books we wrote for the preceding Outreach Specialists at the Minnesota Literacy Council after our term of service in 2017.