bring it on!

tracey, tommy and i at back bay waiting for the orange line

so tonight was our first big thing as champion engagement coordinators. i know i mentioned it before but the reason its called champion is because at city year we call our corporate sponsors champions... like they are champions of our cause. anyway, tommy, tracey and i all had to do our testimonials tonight in front of a bunch of people from T-Mobile Boston. it was incredible. they really responded to what we were saying. and we were all so fabulous. and we also got to wear our uniform -- which was the first time we got to wear it in public for an actual city year event, because most of the corps doesn't have their uniform.

earn your boots - the process by which corps members earn their uniforms, symbolically and literally. we all have to recite the pledge to our PMs (program managers) and then with our teams demonstrate a quality, spirited and creative PT routine in front of our villages from BTR.

my team hasn't had the opportunity to earn our boots yet, but we are going to rock tomorrow, i am sure. but because we had this commitment with T-Mobile tonight, we all got our uniforms on friday. i have to say, we all look fabulous, so crisp and clean. that won't last long, but i got a picture of it to remember our first time.


my testimonial (with some personal info out)

Good evening, my name is Pamela and I am a first year corps member on the Upromise Team serving in the Roxbury and Grove Hall communities. I just graduated from the College of William & Mary in May and I knew that I wanted to do something different, so while my friends were getting consulting jobs, I started to think about what really inspired me.

I had heard about City Year when I was still in high school, but I went to college because that was what everyone did at my high school. When it came time for my brother to graduate from the same high school, he applied to colleges reluctantly. I talked to him about the possibility of taking a year off and I told him about City Year, not knowing that he would take me seriously. My brother served in New Hampshire in 05-06 and when I was reluctantly applying for jobs after college, he talked to me about City Year. He encouraged me to do what I felt was right, not what society thought college graduates should do. He said, Pam, you’re only young once and I kind of felt like he was onto something.

So here I am. I have to admit, I was nervous when I flew up here and was living on my cousin’s couch for the first few days of training. I hadn’t met my roommates except through e-mail, I only half knew what I had signed up for and I could carry all of my belongings through the city of Boston on my own. I’d been exposed to the City Year culture before because I had gone to New Hampshire while my brother was serving and been an external volunteer at their camps but it was completely different to be in it myself.

Lat Thursday, I went to my school for the first time. My first impression of my 5th graders was that they wanted to kill each other and possibly me. As I sat down at the kid-sized table, it dawned on me that these were my 5th graders and I would be working with them day in and day out for the next ten months. My kids.

Throughout training, the directors tell you that you are a part of something larger than yourself. We talk about the national service movement and our role as part of City Year as corps members, but none of that really clicked for me until we were doing Physical Training for the first time in Copley Square. As we were learning the pledge, even though we were reading it off of note cards, it was incredible to hear 140 voices reciting the pledge in unison.

This year I will be a part of something larger than myself and I am proud to be able to dedicate a year of my life to service.