Adam Freed - "a year of great experience"

Hi, I’m Adam!  I serve in Lansing as an AmeriCorps VISTA Leader as a part of the MNA VISTA Program.  I spend most of my time supporting our VISTA members by finding and passing on resources, creating original resources, helping to manage our program website, assisting in planning events and trainings, and making sure that our VISTA members have a great service year!

VISTA Leaders do a lot more than you might expect!  In addition to all of the things that I listed above, we also have opportunities to participate in many other things, both within our program and alongside other parts of MNA.  I've had the privilege of acting as a grant reviewer many times, which has given me great insights on the entire grant process.  Even though I haven’t written a grant, being able to understand what a good application looks like will be incredibly helpful later in my career as I write grants!

The biggest and most important duty that I've had this past year was VISTA recruitment.  Jenny McArdle, Chelsea Leser, and I had to reach out and find candidates for all of our VISTA positions across Michigan.

 ALL OF THEM!

We worked hard to get everything set up for the process and then began the search for candidates in the spring.  With all the setup, searching, interviewing, working with site supervisors, filing paperwork, and completing all the online forms, it was quite a task!  Still, as I think back on the whole process, I’m glad that we were able to find such great and passionate people for our program.  Even though I’ll be leaving the program in a few weeks, I am confident that this cohort of VISTAs will make a huge impact on communities across the state.

This position at MNA has been an incredible experience for me professionally.  Even though I had already served a full year of VISTA prior to coming to MNA, I hadn't really had many opportunities for professional development, so I've been learning a lot from all of the great people here.  Being thrown into a situation where over a dozen other people were depending on me to support them forced me to adapt quickly, and while I still have a long way to go professionally, I can say confidently that my time at MNA has been invaluable.

---