Cooking Matters AmeriCorps kick off National AmeriCorps week in Detroit
Posted by Hayley Beers on Friday, May 20, 2011
Share Our Strength’s Cooking Matters is host to an incredibly talented, caring, and committed group of 22 full and part-time AmeriCorps National Direct members. These AmeriCorps members serve for 9-12 months with Cooking Matters Lead Partner organizations across the country to help expand the reach of our Cooking Matters programming and to ensure a positive classroom experience for both our participants and volunteers.
Last weekend, our Cooking Matters AmeriCorps members joined forces with Downriver CARES, an AmeriCorps program operated by The Guidance Center in Detroit, MI, to kick-off National AmeriCorps week. Share Our Strength’s Cooking Matters AmeriCorps members partnered with Guidance Center Downriver CARES members in providing entertainment and tasty treats such as fruit kabobs to children while their parents engaged in a health and information fair at the Walter White Community Resource Center; part of the River Rouge Promise Neighborhood Initiative modeled off of Harlem’s Children’s Zone in New York.
I, as the Cooking Matters AmeriCorps National Senior Coordinator, was lucky enough to be a part of this special afternoon of service and to have an opportunity to connect not only with our own AmeriCorps members but also with the AmeriCorps members from The Guidance Center. In working side-by-side with both Share Our Strength and The Guidance Center AmeriCorps members, I was reminded of my own term of service as an AmeriCorps member over five years ago and of the huge impact that direct volunteer service can make not only in the lives of those served, but also in the lives of those who are serving.
This week marks the fifth annual National AmeriCorps Week, taking place May 14-21, 2011 and provides an opportunity for Share Our Strength to take a moment to thank our AmeriCorps members and to acknowledge how their efforts are helping Share Our Strength’s Cooking Matters end childhood hunger while also highlighting our support for AmeriCorps and volunteerism in the United States.
May 20, 2011 | 0 comment(s) | Tags: AmeriCorps, Cooking Matters, volunteering
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