[Community-service] Changing what it means to get things done!

[sclaytor]

Hi Darian,

I just wanted to let you know that I enjoyed reading your article.
Stephanie

-----Original Message-----
From: community-service-bounces at nfbnet.org
[mailto:community-service-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Darian Smith
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 4:22 PM
To: Community Service Discussion List
Subject: [Community-service] Changing what it means to get things done!

Hi all:
 I ran across this article I submitted to the National Association of Blind
Student  publication "The Student Slate".
 In this  article I talked about my expirience in AmeriCorps NCCC  While I
have thought on it a bit and my views on something  things have changed-
just realizing my growth and such-- I wanted to share!
 (can anyone guess the inspiration for  the title? - it is a combination of
two tag lines*smile*)  let me know what you think!


Changing what it means to get things done:
An AmeriCorps Experience

by Darian Smith

>From the Editor: Darian Smith currently resides in California and attends
the City College of San Francisco. He also serves on the board of the
National Association of Blind Students. In this piece, Darian chronicles his
experiences in AmeriCorps and demonstrates how volunteerism and community
service can provide opportunities not only to better the lives of others,
but also for personal growth and the education of our peers. Here is his
story:

The Beginning

 The Idea of serving one's country via team-based national community service
was something that struck me as a very powerful way to positively impact
individuals, meet new people, better myself and change what it means to be
blind. The Journey started as a small yet ever-present thought that was
fostered in the summer of 2002 while I was a summer student at the Colorado
Center for the Blind. A team of AmeriCorps national Civilian Community Corps
members and their Team Leader spent a project at the center doing
construction work on the building. After a positive few days of interaction
with these great people and positive role-models, the then- Coordinator of
the Colorado summer program suggested I look into the program and its
benefits.

Many years past, and finally, six years later, fate brought me back to
Denver; this time, a confident blind adult. I was a graduate of the center's
independence training program, had been a summer instructor in Colorado, and
was, soon to be, a fully inducted Corps Member of the AmeriCorps National
Civilian Community Corps, to serve on the same campus as those who first
introduced me to the idea of national service.

Soon after returning to my home state of California, I traveled to Oregon to
start training with my first dog guide. Training was going very well, and I
had reason to believe that I was going to graduate from school.
Unfortunately, after a planned meeting designed to strategize the best tools
and techniques to make the transition for the dog guide/handler team a
successful one, there came some noticeable uneasiness and a lot of questions
about what a guide dog can do (in addition to the concerns of what a blind
person can do) and concerns about how much accommodation would have to take
place.
Additionally, the question of if I was" 100% blind or partially blind"
came up. While it may have been, in their mind, for programmatic reasons, I
felt like the campus was already assuming what I could or could not do.
After thinking, and realizing the amount of ignorance and uneasiness that
people had displayed, I came to understand that some educating had to take
place and that right now would not be the best time for a dog guide. So,
with that, I bid farewell to the friends I gained and the amazing dog I had
began work with and returned back to the bay area.

Once there, I began the process of determining how to best go about
educating 200 people I'd never met before. All the while, counting down the
days until I would begin a new and exciting chapter in my life; one that
only those who are willing to push their limits and are confident about
their abilities as a person, blind or not, would ever attempt.

CTI

 Corps 	Training Institute marks the beginning of the AmeriCorps NCCC
Journey. As a Corps Member, you soon find out that the first couple of days
are probably the most hectic days one will have in the corps.
 The First days were filled with checking in and meeting your roommates, the
people on your team, and the people in your unit. I met a lot of corps
members within the first few hours of my arrival on campus. For most of
these wonderfully enthusiastic and talented individuals, who I would come to
know as my corps mates and friends, it would be the first time they had ever
met a blind person. The same could be said for the team leaders, unit
leaders and office staff on campus, as well.

 During training, Corps Members travel across campus to different trainings
and meetings, which are put on to prepare corps members for the ten months
that lie ahead. Some of those trainings are diversity trainings, CPR, First
Aid and trainings on how to run a Red Cross disaster shelter. They also
cover rules and regulations regarding the program. The very first days
served as a sort of test not only for me, but also the other people on
campus- as it gave me an opportunity to show how a person who is blind
travels in both familiar and unfamiliar areas; among other things. Being a
person who had, just two months prior to joining NCCC, been teaching blind
youth the freedom and sense of empowerment that safe and independent travel
bring, I felt especially confident in my ability to navigate this new
environment, and felt the need to prove that traveling and problem-solving
were things I was very capable of doing.

 Campus life is, generally, what u would see in a university. The campus has
a cafeteria and a set of dorms. I was assigned a single room that had a full
bathroom and was located by an emergency exit; as the staff had a difficult
time understanding (after detailed
explanation) how a blind person can effectively get from the bathroom to
their room or out of a building given an understanding of its layout. So
they decided to put me (against my request) in a "more accessible room."

After a few days of learning about the corps, the campus, and the people on
it, I approached the Director of the AmeriCorps NCCC campus about putting on
a one-person meet the blind month event. While it was not phrased in that
manner, and the conversation was a continuation of a conversation I had had
with her prior to arrival, it was an idea that went over well with her. The
event was spread out over the duration of our month of training and
consisted of meet the blind month literature that was displayed in the main
dorm lobby, a informal introduction to goal ball, a question and answer
session during a corps wide community meeting, and finally an activity
which, in keeping with the month long theme, I called "Cane Travel
Training." I was very fortunate to have been able to get sleepshades and
canes loaned out to me by the Colorado Center for the Blind. Let me assure
you that time and energy put into this activity were time and energy
well-spent. Corps members, team leaders, and office staff alike participated
in the series of informal trainings. In these trainings, they learned how a
blind person safely and effectively navigates both familiar and unfamiliar
areas and does so with a high degree of confidence. They also learned about
proper cane technique, how to move about in a building, go up and down
stairs and travel outdoors. One activity that proved to be a highlight was a
session that took place during my unit's team bonding time at Rocky Mountain
National Park.
Individuals learned how to navigate rocky paths using a cane while listening
to the birds and the wind through the trees and feeling the sun on their
faces. Everyone who took part enjoyed the event, those who didn't, express
interest in taking part in the event if there was to be another one.

Once the month of corps wide training and team selection process ended, I
sat down with my Team Leader, and as is normal practice with team leaders
and corps members pre- project round, we talked about expectations and goals
for the upcoming round in Boulder, Colorado. We discussed keeping an open
line of communication and she stressed to me that she understood that at
times it may not be as easy interacting with individuals who may not allow
me to push myself out of my comfort zone and try new things on the work
site, as they may feel nervous about my participation. She also assured me
that, while she knew I was a self-advocate and supported my advocacy efforts
on my own behalf, she was going to advocate for me as best she could, as
well.

My team leader grew up with a friend who was blind. This friend is currently
in law school; and her positive views of blindness clearly have pushed her
to this point in her education. It is, I believe, this personal interaction
with a successful blind person which has shaped my team leader's views on
blindness, and that has made my team leader one of the more open-minded team
leaders, relative to disabilities, in our corps. She always worked to keep
me in the loop on little yet important things. As one Example: When I was
first arriving on campus, I received a folder that was the same as the ones
that all of the other corps members in my unit had gotten. However, mine had
a message in Braille welcoming me to the corps. And who wrote it? My team
leader. She knew Braille. This was a very nice surprise that meant a lot to
me. She was always there to listen when I was having a tough time
understanding a situation, or needing to vent. She sometimes did not have
the answers, but she would not let me give up on myself and gave me time to
figure out problems, where other people may not have had that kind of
patience. When it came to being on the work site she always took the time to
explain its layout and explain how I might go about doing something on the
site.

Boulder, Colorado

My team's first project was an environmental service project in Boulder
working with the City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks. On this
project, we worked on building two new hiking trails, cleared out a few
irrigation ditches, and removed invasive species (which really just
translates into pulling weeds).

On most of these projects, it was best to stick with a member of the team
and work on a part of the project together, as otherwise it got rather
boring and repetitive quite quickly. When it came to hiking to and from some
of the sites with rougher uneven paths, I alternated between traveling alone
and traveling with a human guide. I found that walking to the site with
someone via human guide was simply a matter of keeping pace and having a
conversation as well.

On one of our work sites, I was asked to clear grass patches out of a
trench. The way I went about this was to first have my cane be stored in a
safe place by a project sponsor, and then, I would walk along one side of
the trench, feeling with my foot for broken up patches of grass and damp
dirt and throw them in an area that was pointed out by the sponsor. The
project introduced me to new tools that I had never used or heard of before,
such as a rockbar and mcloud. I was also educated as to the socio - economic
and recreational considerations people must think about when developing or
not developing land for recreational usage or preservation reasons. I
learned a lot about Colorado and its water conservation plans, as well.

During this Round, I visited the Boulder Valley Chapter of the NFB and told
them about AmeriCorps NCCC and the great benefits of giving back to one's
country through national service. As one of my team roles was recruiter, the
concept of talking-up our program was not too unnatural, but the best part
of it was letting people know that this program is out there and, yes, blind
people can be a part of it and do great things as well.

As for my project sponsors, they were all great helps and enabled me to
learn while learning along with me. The lesson? Given the opportunity and
training, a person who is blind can do most of the same jobs a sighted
person can do, and do them just as effectively as anybody.

Brazoria County, Texas

My team and I went to Brazoria County, Texas and started work with the
United Way. We were told we were going to be doing canvassing work and
talking to residents in the community about resources which were available
to victims of hurricane Ike. This, of course, meant a lot of walking and a
lot of talking. I had two primary roles on this project.
While in the field, I mainly did most of the communicating with clients, as
I have a good skill for relating to people. While away from the worksite, I
would write out weekly progress reports to keep track of where we went and
what we did.

In this round, my skills as a recruiter were taken to new heights.
Normally, a recruiter on a team will research places that would be good to
talk to the youth of the community and contact those places and set up a
time to come in and talk about the program. I would do research (via a
laptop with JAWS and an internet connection) about these places, call them,
and get the logistics squared away so an event could take place. During This
round I, along with different members of my team, would go out to high
schools as well as work with and talk to venture crews to talk-up the
program.

What made this round so special was my ability to be personable and to make
every aspect of myself and the program a shining positive. One thing which
generally made otherwise shy people want to find out more about the program
was when I would mention all of the great aspects of the program and all of
the great things I'd been able to do as a blind person. I don't know if they
joined or considered joining with the hopes of meeting a blind person, or if
being confident and showing your personality makes the program sound like
it's worthwhile. But, either way, youth that would not normally have
considered the program at first glance either seriously considered the
program or planned to do it as soon as they graduated high school or
college. To me, that's a great feeling. I believe that during this round I
showed many youth that anybody who wants to serve their country can do it;
that ability, race, creed or anything else does not have to be a reason to
not help others any chance you get.

Over this round I learned to work with the skill saw, sawzall, drill, axe
and nail gun on various construction and debris removal projects.
The best part of this was that team mates and my team leader had all, by
this point, taken the time to teach me skills I normally would not have
thought I would ever be able to learn. As was the case on my previous
project, the people in the community came in with no idea of what to expect
out of me. In the end they were some of the best teachers and best people I
worked with during my Corps year. They never over reacted, they were always
so nice and helpful to everybody, and they treated me as if blindness was
the last thing they thought of when they saw me.

Hale County, Alabama

This Project round presented an opportunity and a bigger challenge than most
of the others I had worked on. Hale County is the fifth poorest county in
the country, and the town I lived in was like most towns in Alabama, very
small and not notable to anyone who didn't live there. The nature of this
project was construction work and painting.
In previous projects I had done both. The biggest challenge was convincing a
new team leader, team, and the staff back at my base campus that I could do
these things. Another added challenge was convincing them that I could climb
scaffolding with ease and confidence. Though I could show my team leader and
project supervisors that I could do the job, the campus management still had
their doubts.

During this round, all AmeriCorps campuses were filling slots for their
incoming class of team leaders. During this process, I was interviewed by
four different campuses, who were all considering me for open positions. In
the end I was not offered a position by any of the campuses, with some not
even bothering to notify me. One campus admitted to altering the general set
of questions they ask all their candidates, saying they were not confident
that I, as a blind person, would be able to answer them. It was at this
point that I started to return to questioning the true belief that this
campus and organization had in people with disabilities in general and in me
as a blind person. It seemed to me that they felt a person with a disability
could certainly become a corps member, but would not be able to lead a group
of ten young adults on challenging projects. It felt to me as if they saw
this opportunity as something that someone with a disability, especially
blindness, could not be trusted to take on.

I continued with the project in Alabama, working with volunteers on a piece
of history in the area; an old Rosenwald school house that was ninety-five
years old. I also worked in a local thrift store that benefited the
community members. Most of my job this round was recruitment off the
worksite, though I still carried out minimal tasks on the site. On hot days,
which reached 95 degrees, I found myself near hot tin pulling old rusted
nails out of old two-by-fours, while my team mates were climbing the side of
the old school house to nail or paint. While one can justify this by saying
the work had to get done and I was doing a job, I often found myself in just
the situation I had worked so hard to avoid. I didn't want to be sitting on
the sidelines while my teammates got to challenge themselves in ways they
never thought they'd be challenged.

This is not to say that I didn't see some really interesting things. I had
been to my first crawfish boil, and had been through more tornado warnings
then I would have liked. There were some truly great people who were working
to help people in this county change their way of life, and I had been
fortunate enough to get to know some of the best folks in this small county.
I learned that housing and education were not the only problems the county
was facing. I was on a ride-along with a post-grad student from the
University of Alabama who was testing water purity in the area. The student
told Me that many residents in the county often drink and bathe in darkened
water from their pipes and never know how unhealthy it is, nor know any
different. Overall, I think that our Alabama project was a very educational
time for me. I learned about my country, what we take for granted and the
challenges we face in closing the gap between the haves and have nots.

Colorado.

In our fourth project round, I was one of the fortunate few corps members to
be selected to work in AmeriCorps NCCC's Summer of Service program (the only
program of its kind to be run in the country in 2009). The Summer of Service
program (SOS) gives at risk youth the opportunity to serve their local
community and gain invaluable skills and an awareness of community needs. It
also provides a small stipend which the youth often use to support their
families.

In the three weeks prior to the youths' arrival on campus, I, along with my
team mates took part in training and then a two-week camping trip in the
mountains of Jamestown, Colorado. Aside from the fun of getting to set-up a
tent and hike on this project, within these two weeks, my new team and I
worked on moving tree limbs to the side of the road to be gathered. Most of
this involved dragging limbs from down a hillside (or "hauling slash"), and
using my cane with my left arm, sometimes following the voices of my team
mates. One fun thing I did was use a hydraulic wood-splitter. This machine
was designed as an easier, less labor intensive way to split wood.

After the two weeks of work and bonding were complete, we returned to Denver
and got ready for the Participants. Once the program started, I was asked to
serve as a crew leader with three other co-crew leaders overseeing a team of
seven to ten youth. Crew leaders had the responsibility to supervise the
Participants, making sure that they stayed on task on the work site and
maintained safe habits and respectful manners both on and off of the work
site. It was always a bit of a challenge with the Participants, as they
would often challenge my abilities as a supervisor. They worked hard and it
was rewarding to see what great young people they grew into over just one
month.

Three short weeks later, it was time for each corps member who had made it
through the long and challenging journey of an AmeriCorps year to look
around, look ahead, and say goodbye to the family that they had for ten
months. I, to this day, will never forget the feeling of crossing the stage
and thinking, "This is it! All of the challenges I faced, all of the friends
I found, all of the places I've gone and experiences I've had . this is it."
I had finally completed a journey that on more than one occasion, I had
considered walking away from.
But in the end, when I heard in the crowd the roar of applause that was lead
by the very Summer of Service Participants that we helped to graduate just
weeks before, I felt so many things. When I stopped to consider it I felt
finality, pride, and accomplishment. I had completed this program with so
many people whom I had grown to care for and respect, and who had grown to
respect me. On that day I felt like I did change what it means to be blind
in the National Civilian Community Corps, a program where blindness was
truly uncharted territory.



--
Darian Smith

"To dream what is possible and to put oneself in service of that dream is
the formula for a life well lived."

- Dr. Peter Benson

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