On Sept. 27, the City of Green River was the guest presenter for the Green River Chamber’s “Lunch and Learn” series they have each month.
This is the second time they presented the “State of the City,” for chamber members and guests, and they did it to a packed house. What’s good to share at these events is the many programs, projects, and updates from different department head perspectives and governing body representatives.
This year we also had a guest speaker from the state director for the office of the Corporation for National and Community Services. Amy Busch, the director, was here for a site visit on our VISTA Program that we are managing out of our Human Resources department. AmeriCorps VISTA is a national service program designed to alleviate poverty. President John F. Kennedy originated the ideas for VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) in 1965 which was later incorporated into the AmeriCorps network of programs in 1993.
VISTA is a division of the Corporation for National and Community Service and members sign up with a host agency to a full-time term of service totalling 365 days and upon completion they have the option of receiving a cash award or an education award that can be used for school or to pay down educational debts. We had investigated this program when SW-WRAP was in business. This was one of the grants they were managing before they closed and they worked with the city to see how we might utilize the VISTA program in government.
Earlier on, VISTA’s were geared more towards non-profits and helping the over 46 million Americans living in poverty. Now you can see over 7,000 members serving on specific projects not only at non-profit organizations but at public agencies as well. From the City of Green River’s perspective it was an opportunity for us to start working on programs that helped the community overall when we couldn’t afford full-time personnel to tackle these projects due to the huge budget cuts that have been taking place for the last five years.
The three fulltime VISTA members we currently have focus their efforts on the organizational, administrative, and economic development components of specific projects we outlined to help our community.
These include working with our solid waste division to explore recycling opportunities across all waste streams and how the closure of the landfill and the switch over to a transfer station will impact those streams.
Another is helping to create a database of businesses, buildings and properties in our downtown and Main Street districts that will help outline fostering economic growth in these areas.
The third one is assisting with grant identification and review for the many projects we have identified and helping write, brand, and follow through on the many grant process details that are a part of each of them.
This past summer we were also able to utilize Summer VISTAs through the AmeriCorps VISTA Summer Associate program.
Through this program we were able to offer members the opportunity to become engaged in community service through our greenbelt park system updating project.
Again, this helped provide some needed workforce that otherwise we would not have been able to do without this program.
We continue to learn and explore the many possibilities this program can offer us. We were fortunate to have this opportunity and look forward to working with those leading the program at the State and Federal level.
So, if you see or interact with any of these full-time or summer associates, thank them for their service to our community.
Reader Comments(0)