Success Stories
Volunteering Leads to Jobs for 7

Delfina Geiken, a volunteer from the City of Berkeley’s WorkSource employment program, reviews Carolyn Person’s PowerPoint presentation. The Computer Technologies Program, of Berkeley, California, reached out to alumni with disabilities and asked them to mentor current students. As a result, seven students were hired for jobs in their field. Want to replicate their success? Read our interview with CTP’s Joan Breves
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Disability Service Provider Establishes Volunteer Placements at 10 Local Nonprofits

Abilities United Participants Clean Up A Local ParkAbilities United, in Palo Alto, California, provides services to enrich the lives of people with developmental disabilities. Through their Community Connections initiative, they developed partnerships with 15 local non profits. As a result of this collaboration, 30 individuals with developmental disabilities received education on important community issues and chose to volunteer at one or more of 10 volunteer sites. To learn more, read our interview with Abilities United’s Andrea Throndson and Linda Chin.
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Seniors and Teens Prepare Local Community for Disaster

Ann Walker, Senior Companion Volunteer, Liza Torres and Laura Stewart, Ability First students delivered the kits to homes of isolated seniors.Community Senior Services of Claremont, California teamed up with Ability First to prepare their community for natural disasters. Over 50 volunteers, senior citizens and teens with developmental disabilities, prepared and delivered 50 disaster kits to isolated seniors. Want to know how they did it? Read our interview with CSS’s Sandee Hayden
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Teens Use Urban Art to Transform Themselves and Their Community

Mural Developed By YAMEAN Students, featuring a globe rising from cupped hands, set against the backdrop of a Sacramento bridgeIn Sacramento, California, Crossroads Employment Services, and E.L. Hickey Junior/High School partnered to create the YAMEAN Project (Youth Actively Mastering Each Achievement Now!). Students at E.L. Hickey deal with tough urban challenges. YAMEAN helped 14 of those students, with and without disabilities, become leaders. YAMEAN students learned art fundamentals and acquired leadership skills. Want to know what made their project a success? Read our interview with project director, Madeline Thompson.
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Afterschool Programs Invites All Students and Families to Leave Mark Through Art

Students hand decorate tiles for muralSacramento START, an afterschool program provider, organized service events at five of their elementary schools. They invited students from special education classrooms and their families to join other students and families already connected with START. 74 volunteers participated, 38 of those had disabilities. 350 families also took part, 55 of those families were connected to students in special education. 5 community-created tile murals were born. To learn more, read our inter view with START program director, Cheri Chord.
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Self Advocacy Group Launches City Wide Leadership and Service Symposium

San Diego People First is a self-advocacy group comprised of individuals with developmental disabilities. Since 1988, San Diego People First had brought people together to socialize and develop skills. In 2006, they took their activities to the next level and organized a two-day Leadership Symposium. Nearly 30 individuals, hailing from local self-advocacy groups were trained as leaders and given tools to engage their respective groups in community service. As a result, 350 members of self-advocacy groups received information on how to get involved in community service and most joined on-going volunteer projects. An on-going leadership series was also launched. To learn more, read our interview with Paul Mansell, President of San Diego People First.
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Volunteer Center Develops Inclusive Project for National and Global Youth Service Day

Ava Slivkoff begins the day by cleaning out duck houseYouthSERVE, a program of the Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz, set out to make their National and Global Youth Service Day project inclusive of youth with disabilities. Read our interview with Emily Redding, YouthSERVE’s Program Coordinator, to learn how they did it.
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Students Develop Job Skills Through Volunteering

Alex and Kelley work in the VITAS databaseCommunities can be permanently altered when volunteers with disabilities are regularly included. Partnerships between volunteer programs and disability organizations can create stable recruitment pipelines that form the basis of this transformation. But how do two partners go from meeting to marriage? TRACE is program of the San Diego Unified School District which prepares high school students with disabilities for independence. For more than three years, TRACE students have volunteered weekly at VITAS Innovative Hospice Care. The partnership has been spearheaded by VITAS Volunteer Coordinator Alexander Silva. Read our interview Alex, Kathy Pracanica—TRACE Special Education Technician, and TRACE students—Teresa and Kelly to learn more about developing sustainable partnerships that create impact year after year.
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Aurora Ortiz: Outstanding Volunteer

Aurora OrtizAurora Ortiz was born in September 1942 as the fourth child out of 12. Her family was poor and in bad health, so she spent most of her youth in orphanage type missions. At age 55, she had multiple accidents because of her visual impairment. To cope with the disability, she attended the Blind Community Center where a new world immediately opened up. She is now the center’s Volunteer Coordinator as well as a dedicated member. She is committed to helping the Center survive and thrive.
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Joe Meadours: Volunteering Opens Doors

Joe MeadoursJoe is the Executive Director of People First of California, a statewide network that advocates for the rights of individuals with developmental disabilities. Joe is the first People First Director with a developmental disability. Joe began his career through volunteering. Here is his story.
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Cultivating Leaders Through Volunteerism

Madeline and Susan Make Spring BasketsCultivate leaders with disabilities who provide service to the community. This was the charge given to Madeline Harcourt of the Center on Disability Studies, located within the University of Hawai‘i. In response, Madeline developed the Ready, Set, Go program which trained seven individuals with disabilities to identify their unique strengths and use them to serve others. To learn about the journey of the Ready, Set, Go participants read our interview with Madeline.
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Building Houses, Building Inclusion

Chet Cooper on an Ability BuildABILITY Build, the signature program of ABILITY Awareness, engages volunteers with health conditions and disabilities in building accessible low-income homes. Like its founder, Chet Cooper, ABILITY Build is an iconoclast, exploding traditional expectations, having a blast while doing the “impossible.” LINCS first connected with ABILITY Awareness when they organized a house build in O’ahu Hawaii, site of a LINCS network. Want tips for challenging stale notions about disability? Read our interview with ABILITY Awareness founder and Executive Director, Chet Cooper.
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Interns Open Doors at AmeriCorps

Pathway Interns, Sivan Buchinsky and Jasmine Bananayan and their supervisors, AmeriCorps members Erika Helson and Katrina RawlsThe Pathway Program at UCLA Extension proved that young adults with developmental disabilities could succeed in college. The Tarjan Center Service Inclusion Project, introduced the Pathway internship coordinator to California Safe Corps, an AmeriCorps program sponsored by the Red Cross of Greater Los Angeles. Sivan Buchinsky and Jasmine Bananayen, long term friends, and two students in the founding class of Pathway, became interns with the California Safe Corps. Jasmine and Sivan's exemplary service culminated on May 15, 2009 when they delivered an emergency preparedness workshop for 35 individuals during the Red Cross Inclusion Preparedness Day. Read our interview with Jasmine, Sivan and the rest of the team, to see how inclusion can be a win-win scenario.
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Advocacy: Changing the Face of Public Service

Houstng Advocates meet at East Los Angeles Family Resource LibraryThe Family Resource Library and Assistive Technology Center provides information, resources and support to individuals with developmental disabilities and their families in the Eastern region of Los Angeles. The Center spent nine months training individuals with developmental disabilities to advocate for affordable housing in their local neighborhoods. Read our interview with Yvette Baptiste, Resource Center Executive Director, to replicate their success in your community.
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Mobile Volunteering for Inclusion

AmeriCorps VISTA LogoHands on Sacramento mobilizes thousands of volunteers each year. In 2009, two Hands on Sacramento AmeriCorps*VISTA members, Christina Edwards and Matthew Holkeboer reached out to local disability self-advocacy groups to pilot a new strategy called Mobile Volunteering. Self-advocates volunteered on their own schedule, at their own meeting site, and created birthday cards for children in transition shelters. Empowered by these successful volunteer experiences, self-advocates soon began volunteering at other sites in the community. To read more about the success of Mobile Volunteering, read our interview with Christina and Matthew.
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Short Term Volunteerism as a Bridge to National Service

Literacy AmeriCorps LogoThrough the CaliforniaVolunteers Disability Inclusion Initiative, 14 service and disability organizations were given mini-grants to create inclusive recruitment pipelines. Literacy AmeriCorps and What’s Next Mentoring were two San Diego-based agencies supported through mini-grants. Four members of What’s Next Mentoring, a leadership program for youth and young adults with disabilities, volunteered with Literacy AmeriCorps during a special service event. As a result, 2 enrolled in Literacy AmeriCorps. To learn more about this successful partnership read our interview with Kimberly Moore, Literacy AmeriCorps Program Manager and Cyndi Jones, former Executive Director of What’s Next Mentoring.
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Creating a Blockbuster Outreach Plan

AmeriCorps LogoThe Monterey County United for Literacy AmeriCorps program and the Central Coast Center for Independent Living formed a partnership in April 2009. In 9 short months, their partnership led Monterey United to create a simple but effective program redesign that built more flexibility into both their national service and volunteer positions, and blew open the doors of service to a wider variety of individuals. Central Coast Center for Independent Living also integrated AmeriCorps education throughout their organization, and now disseminates information about AmeriCorps to people with disabilities on a weekly basis. To learn more about a partnership that moved from basic access to program redesign, read our interview with Jillian Wiker and Jennifer Ramirez.
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Identifying the Right Recruitment Pipeline

Apple GraphicProject REACH/APPLE, an education focused AmeriCorps program, had been implementing inclusion activities for many years, but only found big success when they tapped into the RIGHT recruitment pipeline. Through a grant from the Tarjan Center/California Volunteers, Project REACH/APPLE reached out to Transition Specialists in their own school district. These Specialists handpicked six high school students with disabilities who were eager to volunteer as a way to explore an interest in the education field. More than half of the students continued to volunteer after completing their committed hours and many are considering applying to become national service members with Project REACH/APPLE. To learn more, read our interview with Project REACH Coordinator, Vickie Myers and Transition Specialist, Linda Skipper.
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Mid-Length Service Projects as a Bridge To National Service

Fresno Safe and Proud Member and Youth Volunteer Showing Presentation MaterialsAs a result of a partnership between the Fresno Center for Independent Living and the Fresno Safe and Proud Neighborhoods AmeriCorps program, 10 young adults with disabilities volunteered alongside Fresno Safe and Proud AmeriCorps Members to provide safety and disaster preparedness information to community members with and without disabilities. These presentations allowed 10 youth with disabilities to experience life as an AmeriCorps member, led 3 individuals with disabilities to submit applications for AmeriCorps service, and paved the way for placing 4 AmeriCorps member slots in disability related sponsoring organizations, including the Fresno Center for Independent Living. To learn how to give young adults with disabilities successful pre-service experiences, read our interview with Elisa Sgambellone, Fresno Safe and Proud Program Manager and Martha Guzman, Coordinator of the Fresno CIL BRIDGES Program.
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