SouthCoast Serves is pleased to introduce our  AmeriCorps Student Leaders in Service.  Funded by a $5000 grant through Massachusetts Campus Compact, five UMass Dartmouth students will work with five SouthCoast Serves partners on various community projects which will benefit the South Coast region from October 2010 until May 2011.   Each student has committed to serve 300 hours with their host sites and in exchange, as AmeriCorps members, they will each receive a $1,000 education award.

Matt Kennedy is a senior at UMass Dartmouth majoring in marketing.  He is working at United Neighbors of Fall River, a Community Connection Collaboration which is working to strengthen the community of Fall River.  Previously, Matt volunteered with the Dracut Baseball Association as an assistant coach and with a Thanksgiving basket drive.

Courtney Kurzweil will be serving as the assistant volunteer coordinator at the City of New Bedford. She is a senior who is majoring in political science and minoring in sociology. Courtney is a member of the Rotary Club and UMass Dartmouth’s Rotaract club.  After graduation, she plans to go to law school and continue to serve with Rotary.

Charles Nicholson will be serving at the Dartmouth YMCA.  Specifically, he will be assisting with the YMCA’s Sharing the Harvest program, which is a community farm where all the produce is donated to local food pantries.  Charles is a senior and a marketing major and is involved with intramural athletics on campus.  He enjoys playing basketball and football.

Katie Trujillo is a junior who is majoring in human resources and marketing; she will be working at the United Way of Greater New Bedford.  Katie’s main responsibilities will be maintaining and updating the United Way’s volunteer database: www.volunteersolutions.org.  Katie has volunteered at Smiles Mentoring and with the Special Olympics.

Samantha Wonson is serving at the Boys and Girls Club of Greater New Bedford.  She will be assisting with managing volunteers, especially America Reads tutors.  Samantha is a senior and a marketing major who is a peer mediator and a member of the Women’s Lacrosse team at UMass Dartmouth.  She has previously volunteered with Toys for Tots and the Girl Scouts of America.

According to Michelle Hantman, President of the United Way and a SouthCoast Serves founding partner:  “This is a great win/win, the community is getting significant support with Katie’s work and Katie is getting great experience. We are very excited about this opportunity and look forward to a successful year.” Deirdre Healy, the Assistant Director of the Center for Civic Engagement at UMass Dartmouth added , “The 1500 hours that these students will be contributing to service in the South Coast region is the equivalent of more than $15,000 dollars worth of work.  And since many of the Student Leaders in Service are working to recruit additional volunteers, the value of their time goes up exponentially every time a new volunteer is recruited.”

SouthCoast Serves is a University of Massachusetts Dartmouth facilitated collaborative that fosters service and volunteerism to meet the needs of our community by leveraging resources, expertise and capacity to maximize impact.  For more information, please visit our website at www.south-coast-serves.org.