Bringing More Women Into Tech

One of the biggest goals of the VISTA Code Corps program is to give kids who would be less likely to participate in computer science, including girls, a chance to start working with CS. In my time as a VISTA, I've had the privilege of attending a few different trainings on including girls in computer science as well as STEM. Here is some of what I've learned.

Appathon!

Boys & Girls Clubs of Portland held its first-ever Appathon last Saturday, November 7th! Our theme was Balancing a Healthy Lifestyle.

Bridging the Gulf: Why BGCP Would Benefit From More Admin Site Visits

Disclaimer: today's post is largely about Boys & Girls Clubs of Portland.  There's a good chance that what I'm talking about applies to management in other organizations, but this entry will be more focused on the process at BGCP.

There are two groups of staff at Boys & Girls Clubs of Portland. On one hand, we have the Administrative staff: various executives, officers, and coordinators (and the VISTA team). On the other, we have Program staff: these people work in the Clubhouses and are dedicated to day-to-day delivery of program to all of BGC Portland's kids.

The problem is this: there is a gulf between the two groups. The Admin staff spend most of their time in their offices working to keep the back end of the clubs running. They are not able to spend much, if any, time working with the kids and the Program staff. This is no one's fault: their job is vital to keeping the organization running smoothly and they take it seriously. I know that many of them, myself included, would love to take more time out to spend working directly with the kids. After all, the desire to help kids grow and succeed is the glue that sticks everyone here together.

What isn't apparent to most Admin staff though, is how huge the gulf seems to those on the other side.

Why Community History Matters in a Volunteer Orientation

In revamping Boys & Girls Clubs of Portland's volunteering system, I had the opportunity to take a ten-week course on the AmeriCorps VISTA site all about volunteers. I learned a great deal in the process, and one of the main things I took away from the course was the importance of a strong volunteer orientation. In our meeting with the Clubs to discuss the volunteering system today, though, I was given a perfect example of why one of the aspects of a strong orientation, the "Cause" section, includes the history and populations of the neighborhood.

Meeting with the Clubs on Volunteers

As part of my VISTA assignment this year, I was asked, along with my co-VISTA, to entirely revamp Boys & Girls Clubs of Portland's volunteering program. This has been a very exciting process over the last few months, and we were excited to hear that BGCP has put a new position in place to continue this process. Over the past month or so, we have been working with this new Coordinator of Program Collaborations and Volunteerism, Tonya Peshel. Tonya and I just finished meeting with two of our Boys & Girls Clubs to talk to them about their perception of the volunteering system as it stands and their vision of how the program can change to benefit the Clubs' operations.