Volunteer fights poverty with passion

Jean VanGeest, 54, is ready to fight poverty with passion, as an AmeriCorps-VISTA volunteer working with Sisters Habitat for Humanity.

She works as the resource development manager; her main task is to deepen the well of resources available to the chapter. Those resources are defined as in-kind donations, cash and volunteers.

Using the graphic design skills gained at the Art Institute of Seattle, VanGeest is set to redesign the Web site for Sisters Habitat and create printed materials. The passion she feels for her work is the catalyst she'll use to recruit volunteers for various Habitat committees.

AmeriCorps-VISTA is a long-established national service program designed to fight poverty. Founded in 1965, it began as Volunteers In Service to America (VISTA) and was incorporated into AmeriCorps in 1993. Volunteers commit to a year of service in a non-profit that focuses its work on bringing community members out of poverty.

In exchange, volunteers receive a modest housing stipend and health insurance, and students are eligible for an education grant. VanGeest will finish her studies in media arts and animation when her year in Sisters is complete.

VanGeest chose Habitat for Humanity because she believes in it.

"I think it's an effective way to alleviate poverty," she said.

Her family moved around in a quest for work during her childhood. They lived for a time in Philomath, in the Willamette Valley and VanGeest remembers Sisters as a place they traveled through. She's lived in every state except Alaska and Hawaii, and said, "If we'd had a stable environment, we would have had a different life."

VanGeest is part of a group dubbed Recovery VISTAs, so named because of the expanded funds available to AmeriCorps-VISTA as part of the economic recovery program. Several thousand more volunteers made themselves available this year than in any previous year, and there were more volunteers than positions.

The Recovery VISTAs who signed on for work with Habitat for Humanity met in Washington, D.C. this summer. VanGeest said it was an inspiring gathering, with volunteers ranging in age from college students taking a break to seniors looking for fulfillment in their retirement. They all held a "volunteers mindset," willing to step into a community for a time to make a difference.

VanGeest is hoping to do the same for Sisters.