Engage Upstate is excited to announce that its team has expanded to include two new members, Sam Reinhardt and Corentez Cannady!
Sam and Corentez are engaging in a year of service as AmeriCorps members in the VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) program.
You may be wondering what AmeriCorps is all about.
AmeriCorps is a federal agency dedicated to national service and volunteerism. It recruits Americans across the country to volunteer at service organizations in their communities in order to help address the nation’s most pressing challenges and to help improve people’s lives.
Learn more at AmeriCorps.gov.
The AmeriCorps VISTA members are here to help Engage Upstate build its capacity and achieve increased community engagement on campus. You will see the VISTA members collecting data about community-engaged events, increasing student awareness about service learning, and getting faculty and staff excited about the great things happening between Upstate and the community!
This is an exciting time for not only for our office but also for Upstate, which has not had a VISTA member in almost a decade!
AmeriCorps VISTA partnerships result in increased efficacy and output for their organizations, allowing those organizations to better achieve their goals with the ultimate aim of raising people out of poverty to lead fulfilling lives.
Information via AmeriCorps
For Engage Upstate, this means setting our students up to be successful learners by forging meaningful bonds with their community and the world, thus encouraging them to become engaged and connected citizens who feel empowered to make change in their own lives and in the lives of others.
About our AmeriCorps VISTA Members
Corentez Cannady is a Fall ’22 graduate of Mars Hill University. Due to his interest in nonprofit work, he decided to become an AmeriCorps member. His experience in service learning as a Psychology major at Mars Hill led him to take interest in the VISTA role here at USC Upstate. He is looking forward to encouraging students to get involved in service learning and helping them to understand the great benefits of SLCE involvement!
Sam Reinhardt is a recent Upstate alumna. She graduated in May with her B.A. in English and a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies. She has returned this semester to begin her year of service as a VISTA. All her thanks goes out to our great campus Career Services director Hannah Terpack, who pointed her in the direction of the VISTA role on campus. Sam is passionate about service learning and is excited to help spread the word about the transformational power of community engagement when applied in the academic context.
If you see Sam or Corentez around, they’d love to talk with you all about SLCE on campus, so say hello! If you have any ideas for our AmeriCorps VISTA members to assist you in your service learning and community engagement goals, please contact Dave Marlow: marlowd@uscupstate.edu.