By Keenan A. Mount
AmeriCorps’ YouthBuild program involved Lewis and Clark Community College’s Scott Bibb Center students in a project that provides people and families experiencing homelessness or that may be at risk with needed resources and services.
These services and resources ranged from hygiene care to aiding in registering for DMV IDs for those reached by the project.
“I met a 21-year-old who shared with me about their PTSD, their experience being homeless and how they’re trying to make a change in their life,” participating student Aidan Connor said about his experience volunteering in the program. “This experience really touched me and helped me to realize that I can help those in my community.”
This national project, facilitated by YouthBuild, is known as Homeless Connect and provided 7,226 unique services in the 2020-2021 fiscal year according to a report found on the project’s website.
“I really liked seeing the smile on peoples’ faces when we were able to help them,” Kyan O’Bannon, another student volunteer, said. “I had some interesting conversations.”
YouthBuild is a partner of AmeriCorps, a national community service organization, and together the two organizations have engaged “more than 75,000 Americans each year in service opportunities that address unmet critical needs in education, environmental stewardship, healthy futures, veterans and military families, economic opportunity, disaster services, and other unmet community needs,” as well as recorded over 20 million community service hours since their partnership was formed in 1994, according to the organization’s website.
