Kurtis Edwards - Cloudy With A Chance of Inspiration

​This is Kurtis Edwards, and I am a first-year VISTA serving with Washtenaw Literacy in Ypsilanti. My responsibility is coordinating numerous adult education programs throughout the community with a focus on workforce development. Because we're so embedded in the community, the job sees me working in many different locations, coordinating and mentoring a diverse amount of volunteers and clients. The organization has a small dedicated staff and, as such, VISTAs lend support in a high capacity. We're so entrenched in the community in our roles; VISTAs are often the first faces a volunteer or client see of Washtenaw Literacy. Being a VISTA with Washtenaw Literacy is very challenging, requiring keen interpersonal skills, solid self-management, quick problem solving, and an advanced understanding of the role education has in the wellbeing of a community.

Two thoughts keep popping up in my head throughout my time of service with AmeriCorps VISTA. Poverty is so encompassing to those of us within it that focusing on education, workforce, or college access can feel trivial at times. But any social condition of oppression is so massive of a problem mending it requires the daily grind of those who serve. It can be so challenging to hold on to that broader mission within some of the mundane, small impacts we have in our daily work. It can be easy to fall into old troupes of self-doubting your work on one hand or even wearing the social-justice warrior cape a bit too tight on the other. We have to keep at the daily grind and not doubt or over-estimate ourselves because the forces that put us in poverty will never cease. If it’s a constant drip of bad, I'll try to be a steady stream of good. Grappling with and accepting the daily grind has helped me hold on to the mission at hand while serving.

The other thought is we code urban and rural terms in many different ways, and we're often made to question the other. However, poverty isolates individuals both urban and country. It's almost like both areas tunnel to poverty from opposite ends yet still meet at the same point of isolation. In the country, there are so few resources that it's a game of connection. With so little 'noise' and so much space, something has to be loud enough to be heard. In the city, there are usually so many resources it's a game of connection, too. With so much 'noise' we might not be able to hear those who need us the most. One has to build up those connections loudly, the other has to break down silos quietly, but both are building relationships. Understanding those similarities between urban and rural and all the coded meanings within the two will continue to help me serve the people of Michigan.

The people we serve often live a life of one step forward and two steps back. To me, that is a daily grind like no other and one I have experienced. I realize more and more throughout service that I must help that one step be on the best possible foot forward. But I also have to hope that even if I can't see the other foot, I'm helping it too. My daily grind means I'm there. I'm consistent. I don't selfishly seek the big wins, and I always care. My daily grind also means to understand when I have to be loud or when I need to hear the faintest of whispers. Poverty creates an isolation in any community that make it feel like it's always cloudy, but some of the most beautiful flowers grow in the shade.