Bringing Service Home

Georgia Ehlers
The University of Arizona Graduate College
PO Box 210066
520-621-9103
gehlers@u.arizona.edu

The mission of the University of Arizona is “To discover, educate, serve, and inspire.” Bringing Service Home places returned Peace Corps Volunteers, who are in graduate school, in community-based internships that provide service-based learning and scholarly engagement while meeting critical needs of the community.

Vision:

We envision involving University of Arizona students, alumni and friends in an expanded view of service in relation to scholarly engagement. The work of AmeriCorps members in the community benefits underserved communities and provides opportunities to bring home the understanding of other cultures. We are placing AmeriCorps members in agencies to meet environmental, health and nutrition, and housing needs of the community.

History:

The University of Arizona Peace Corps Fellows/USA program was established in 2000 and has provided 80,000 hours of service while supporting 95 Peace Corps Fellows in graduate school. We have partnered with 100 non-profits and governmental agencies in the community. This year, the program includes 57 Peace Corps Fellows, twenty of whom are AmeriCorps members. The program has allowed us to expand to include non-students and undergraduates.

• Arizona Cooperative Extension – nutrition and watershed steward
• Bureau of Land Management – FireWise education
• CEDO – educational programs in southern Arizona
• City of South Tucson – planning, crisis management training and community  policing and prevention
• Drachman Institute – low-income housing
• Tucson Community Food Bank Food Security Program – mobile markets and    evaluation of programs
• Happy Times Children’s Center, Douglas – providing early learning and respite care with a focus on school preparedness
• House of Neighborly Service after school tutoring and literacy
• Housing Authority of Cochise County
• The Partnership – community-based prevention
• Pima County Natural Resources, Parks & Recreation
• San Pedro and Santa Cruz Natural Resources Conservation Districts – determining the effects of recharge on the streambed
•  Sonoran Institute – volunteers remove invasive weeks
•  United Way – VITA Tax Program, domestic violence prevention
•  Water Resources Center – Sustainable Tucson, Project Wet

Academic Programs:

Members are working on graduate degrees in Hydrology, Landscape Architecture, Language Reading and Culture, Public Administration and Policy, Public Health, Watershed Management, and Wildlife Management. Members serve in 900-hour internships while in school.

Professional Development and Mentoring:

Members meet monthly for training, professional development and mentoring opportunities. Programs this year included conflict resolution and management, presentations, working in the nonprofit sector, and other programs. Training has included CPR and Disaster Service Members complete a volunteer service activity each semester.