VISTA Summer Associates

Check out the highlights from the 2011 OCC Summer Associate VISTA program!

Summer Associates 2012

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) is committed to ensuring a brighter future for all of America’s youth and engaging students in the community. The AmeriCorps VISTA Summer Associate Program gives campuses an opportunity to invest in both of these goals.

In conjunction with CNCS, Ohio Campus Compact anticipates sponsoring 30 Summer Associate (SA) VISTAs in Ohio this year. The 2012 program will focus on food access for disadvantaged youth, much like the 2011 SA program (see below). This year, the program will be ten weeks long, and we anticipate the service dates to be June 4th – August 10th, 2012. SAs will work on a variety of food access projects and issues, to include community garden development and sustainability, summer health and nutrition education programs, farmers markets, and healthy snack and meal programs to name a few.

The anticipated timeline (subject to change):

• March 16th: Campuses respond to invitation to host Summer Associate VISTAs
• March 23rd: OCC announces placement of 30 slots; Recruiting and hiring begins
• April 20th: All Summer Associates are hired and all the paperwork is due to the State Office of CNCS
• Anticipated service dates are June 4th - August 10th, 2012

 

2011 Summer Associates Overview

2011 OCC SA VISTAs at-a-glance

• Engaged over 800 disadvantaged Ohio youth
• Served almost 12,000 meals at free breakfast and lunch programs
• Engaged almost 300 local community and college campus volunteers who served over 2,300 hours
• Maintained 18 community gardens
• Donated 2,000+ lbs of fresh produce to local communities