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VISTA is the domestic Peace Corps, that how it is most commonly referred to
It is part of the AmeriCorps national service program. It was founded back in the 1960s as part of President Johnson’s War on Poverty
It’s really an anti-poverty focused program. It places full time volunteers in low income communities in non-profit organizations
and other community agencies to help reduce and eliminate barriers for people living in poverty to lead a more successful life
So, VISTAs do capacity building work, they help create sustainability, they are doing the community organizing
that makes a community stronger and better and better able to serve low-income people.
Traditionally, in the last 40 to 50 years, VISTAs have been responsible for things like Head Start
credit unions, for neighborhood watches, so the history of VISTA in communities is really exciting.
I think the biggest impact that VISTAs have though is changing the way that communities do business.
They are helping them reevaluate their systems and their programs and they are helping them make connections
and reduce duplication of services which we see in the nonprofit world all the time
They are recruiting volunteers and doing resource generation and they are just helping their community get organized
so they will be better able to serve all of their residents
The impacts vary on community and they vary on the organization that the VISTA serves
but I think their biggest role is that they are there to bring a fresh perspective and they have a laser focus on community change
change and they are able to look at things differently and bring the right people to the table.
The Department of Public Instruction receives a grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service to sponsor this VISTA program
We receive this money every three years, on a three year grant cycle
Then we recruit, train, support and sponsor the volunteers and the agencies
We are kind of an intermediary host site
We recruit libraries and public schools to host our VISTA members. They apply for VISTA members
and then we have an approval and review process and then we place these volunteers in sites across the state
We continue to work with not just the VISTA, but the site, the site supervisor
the community, the volunteers, whoever is involved in the project, we are that support piece in the whole thing
The DPI VISTA project started and has been for the last 10 years focused on family involvement in schools
Then, in 2009, when Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
which put more money into economic recovery work and financial literacy and those kinds of revitalization projects, VISTA received some of that money
Wisconsin also received the chance to apply for some of those funds.
So, in talking to some other staff at DPI including the public library development team we really identified public libraries as a great recipient for volunteers that would
do job recovery, economic recovery, financial literacy training, provide those kinds of services
So working with some folks here at DPI, reaching out to public libraries across the state we developed a work plan and an application
and developed this vision for what our VISTAs would do in libraries and how that would be different from the rest of our project.
I have been really excited by the library part of our VISTA project
It’s unique. As far as we know, there aren’t VISTA projects in public libraries anywhere in the country
we feel excited that we’ve made this connection and this match to public libraries and the need is increasing
It’s not going away any time soon. Unemployement is increasing
and folks are looking for services that can’t be provided by job centers or workforce development or other local community partners
libraries are going to be a part of this. I’ve been excited to see the impact that we’ve had on the five libraries that we have worked with in the last couple of years
Establishment of the Opportunity Center in Fond du Lac, the Community Resource Center in the Racine Public Library
the job help program at the Madison Public Library and all of the branches throughout the city, it has been exciting
It’s unfortunate that the need is increasing, but it’s really rewarding to see the hard work being put in and paid off
and we are hearing such positive feedback from the librarires, from the patrons, from the communities
It really goes to show how vital and important libraries are to help people go and get further employment
look for jobs, redo their resumes, enter the workforce again. VISTAs are helping those people get back on their feet.