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In Savannah,
volunteers personalized letters written to American Soldiers serving in Iraq
with their handprints.
The first ever
AmeriCorps Week was held in May. The weeklong event was an opportunity to salute
AmeriCorps members and alums for their service and thank the program's many
partners for their support. According to the AmeriCorps website, the event was
designed to help motivate more Americans to join AmeriCorps or volunteer in
their communities.
Hands On Georgia AmeriCorps members joined forces on projects at several
affiliate locations serving as prime examples of how service can be
collaborative. Hands On Forsyth AmeriCorps member Jerry Dupree was joined by
Hands On Columbus member Kristin Franklin and Hands On Georgia Program Manager
Beth Fenger for the Cumming-Forsyth County Miracle League (CFCML) games. The
CFCML is an adapted sports program for children and adults with disabilities.
Currently the program offers softball with more than 70 players participating.
The ages of the players range from 5 to 50. For the game, volunteers assisted
with field set up and served as buddies during the game. The buddies helped the
players keep safe while batting, pitching, catching and running the bases. The
event had a total of 43 buddies who served 55 hours for the four CFCML games
played that day.
Hands On Savannah (HOS) AmeriCorps member Summer Teal Simpson hosted eight
projects for the Week of Service. She was joined by other AmeriCorps members for
two of them. Hands On Macon AmeriCorps members Kevin Barrere and Michael Blair
joined Simpson and HOS for Connection to Literacy, a project for children ages 8
and under designed to help eradicate the intergenerational cycle of low literacy
and poverty. Read It Loud! Savannah provided the books that were read aloud
during story time at the park. Volunteers came in costume and the Hands On
Georgia AmeriCorps members offered face painting, balloons and a special book
reading and signing by children's author Caryn Brown. Volunteers made a literacy
connection with more than 50 children.
At
Memorial Park on Tybee Island, Hands On Georgia AmeriCorps Program Coordinator
Felicia Williams and Hands On Atlanta's Citizen Action AmeriCorps members joined
HOS in sprucing up Tybee's Memorial Park. Volunteers joined members as they
planted a garden and painted the Tybee Dog Park fence.
Volunteers also offered tours of Old Fort Jackson celebrating our country and
providing children a service opportunity to send their handprints and a
personalized letter to an American soldier serving in Iraq.
In Harlem the service project focused on
middle school students who participated
in A Seat for Social Justice Project. A Seat For Social Justice is a public art
project that celebrates Rosa Parks and the brave men, women and children of the
Civil Rights
Movement. Hands On Milledgeville member Clay McElheny joined his
fellow members at Hands On Harlem to complete the project with the after school
program at the Harlem Library. Hands On Harlem members Lynn Miller and Gina
Twynam started the day with team building activities and the young participants
also discussed the importance of good choices and staying true to themselves.
 Afterwards, member Bonnie Vest led an art project where the students learned an
art form used in Kenya to tell their personal stories called The Talking Hands.
Each child traced their hand and then filled the outline with pictures of
themselves. As they finished their hand projects they began cutting pictures to
be used in their Seat for Social Justice. As a result of this service project,
Vest now goes to the library each Thursday with some sort of art medium for the
students to explore. "Even though they are 'cool' middle schoolers, they often
let their guards down while participating in something as simple as Playdoh,"
she said.
Hands On Harlem AmeriCorps
Member Bonnie Vest and a student
work on the Seat for Social Justice
project.
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