Christopher Castle - New Beginnings

Hello! My name is Christopher Castle, I am second-year VISTA serving as a VISTA leader with Michigan Nonprofit Association, or MNA. I have served with City Year Chicago and with Capital Area College Access Network or CapCAN. These two positions have brought me here to MNA. These positions were a huge part of my life, and they taught me important lessons that I’d like to share here.

City Year Chicago was a roller coaster of challenges and successes. City Year is a near-peer mentoring program that focused on improving the math and English skills of students learning in urban schools. The major lesson I learned working with City Year was perseverance. There were days where it felt hopeless and thankless. I am not going to lie, it was rough. Then I remember why I chose to serve with City Year. I remember my students that I helped. I see their smiling faces when they figured out a difficult problem. I remember all the times they came into our City Year room with smiles on their faces because they got to hang out with our team. I remember all the fun and great memories and it helps me focus on what is important.

CapCAN was a great experience and a shift from my time with City Year. CapCAN is all about college access- VISTAs are placed within high schools around the greater Lansing area where they advise high school seniors on how to obtain potential postsecondary opportunities. This included filing for FAFSA, college applications, and resumes. The year was going great, until COVID-19 attack the nation. CapCAN taught me the lesson of expecting the unexpected. Plans change, crazy things do happen, and we adapt. We switched to remote services, and we created a new platform for online advising for recent high school graduates and college students. Throughout my service year, it was filled with unexpected situations that arose. I had to plan for new staff members, new counselors, new events, and new partnerships. It was never a dull day at the school. CapCAN helped me prepare for the unexpected, and I had a great service year.
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These lessons were the two that I took away during my service year. They taught me valuable lessons, and have molded me into the person I am today. I am beyond grateful for those opportunities, and I am hoping to learn more lessons in this position. Just as Winston Churchill says, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.”