From VISTA Corps to Shriver Corps: Providing Solutions for 50 Years

By SHIRLEY SAGAWA, presidential appointee and advisor in the first Bush and Clinton administrations, who has been called “the founding mother of the modern service movement.” She was instrumental in the drafting and passage of legislation creating AmeriCorps and the Corporation for National and Community Service.

In 2012, Rosa Carty, a single mom and Army veteran who served her country during the Afghanistan War, was planning a law enforcement career when a car struck her, injuring her badly. As Rosa describes it, “I felt like I was in the prime of my life. Then, all of a sudden, my plans were stripped away from me.” During her lengthy recovery, she was unable to find employment that would support her daughter and get her the ongoing medical help she needed. She spent months unsuccessfully seeking help from government and community agencies, but she kept hitting brick wall after brick wall. “There was a lot of misinformation out there, and I was literally nothing more than a case number,” she says.

Then Rosa discovered LIFT, an anti-poverty organization where she found not brick walls, but solutions. At LIFT, AmeriCorps members and volunteers teamed up to help her develop an action plan, then find and connect her to the resources she needed. Their efforts paid off. She was able to stabilize her housing situation and find a job.

As Rosa’s story shows, national service volunteers can directly help struggling women get on the path to self-sufficiency. Of course, this isn’t a new idea. National service as a strategy to address poverty dates back to 1964, when Sargent Shriver created the domestic Peace Corps equivalent called Volunteers in Service to America, or VISTA, for President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. VISTA became part of AmeriCorps when that national volunteer service network was created in 1993.

AmeriCorps members, supported in part through the federal Corporation for National and Community Service, receive modest living allowances and education scholarships in exchange for one or two years of full-time service.¹

LIFT has made use of AmeriCorps members in its own innovative service-delivery model, which pairs clients like Rosa with these highly trained volunteers who help them identify and achieve their goals: getting a decent job and providing their families with safe homes, quality education for their kids, and economic stability and security. Rosa Carty says that at LIFT, she was a person with a name, not just a number, and that is what differentiates it from other service providers.

Kirsten Lodal—who was a college student when she co-founded LIFT in 1998—says LIFT’s culture of service is based on respect and collaboration. AmeriCorps members and other LIFT volunteers provide direct personal contact and connections—not only helping thousands of clients get hooked up to resources they need now, but also providing the support network, the confidence, and the skills they will need to manage tough times in the future, and to ultimately give back to others through service.

Air Force veteran Kristy Richardson relies on public transportation to travel to and from work and the Veterans Administration Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she is being treated for PTSD. Even in the face of trauma, Kristy maintains a good attitude and wants to succeed. {MELISSA FARLOW}

“AmeriCorps members serve because they want to make a difference for a year or two,” says Lodal. “But their experience inspires a lifelong commitment to ending poverty.” For example, Rosa Carty was inspired to pay it forward herself, returning to LIFT to lead the program that teams AmeriCorps volunteers with veterans like her, and connecting them to life solutions.

For 50 years, this national service model has worked. Today, there are many AmeriCorps programs helping people who are struggling to find the help they need. Here are just a few of those programs:

• The National Anti-Hunger and Opportunity Corps engages VISTA volunteers to fight hunger and improve nutrition, primarily by increasing participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP—formerly known as food stamps—and by helping anti-hunger community organizations increase their capacity to provide comprehensive benefit assistance and outreach to low-income constituents.
• VetCorps in Washington state engages AmeriCorps members to provide support, resources, and information to help veterans in college navigate the G.I. Bill and university financial aid offices, and also access other federal, state, or local veterans benefits.
• Minnesota Opportunity Corps Employment Navigators are AmeriCorps members who use research-based instruction and tools to help clients navigate through employment and postsecondary education and become self-sufficient.

These and so many other programs demonstrate what Sargent Shriver knew 50 years ago. National service members don’t just bring savvy and skills plus caring and commitment to their work; they also offer a critical advantage over many traditionally staffed government programs because AmeriCorps members and the volunteers they recruit don’t have to keep a constant eye on the clock. They can take the time clients need to get their problems solved.

So today, with many millions of women and families living on or over the brink of poverty, we have a new opportunity. The national service model could present a scalable way to increase opportunity for millions of families.

To this end, Corporation for National and Community Service CEO Wendy Spencer has agreed to deploy VISTAs around the country in a new Shriver Corps. They will develop tools connecting eligible low-income families with the educational opportunities, job training, and access to public benefits that can help them get on firm economic footing—and then train community volunteers how to use these tools. By pairing the Shriver Corps’ low-cost, high-impact human capital with computer technology we have today, we can help states easily and efficiently identify and connect struggling women and their families to available sources of assistance—providing more efficient access instead of brick walls.

Unfortunately, even though Congress authorized a large expansion of AmeriCorps in 2009, funding has actually declined in recent years, causing many programs to close. Fully funding AmeriCorps, particularly VISTA and the Opportunity Corps authorized under the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, would enable programs such as LIFT to grow. In addition, states could use federal TANF block-grant funds to support AmeriCorps positions that assist TANF recipients; one of the goals of the law is to “end the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work and marriage.”

In this way, a national system of AmeriCorps members leading, training, and working with volunteers—all using shared computer technology to connect clients with programs and opportunities—could provide a scalable solution to supply the human resources needed to help every low-income family find a way out of poverty. Fifty years after the War on Poverty was launched, we can do this.