During the Summer of 2004, three students were awarded Community Service Fellowships: Anna Arnold, to work on a Community Foundation summer fellowship; Joshua Bruff, to work with Communities That Care; and Ernesto Medina, to work on the Hope VI project. The Levitt Center also funded an additional grant that allowed Ricky Reichenbach to assist with the Hope VI project. Here's what our Fellowship students had to say about their experiences this summer:
Hope VI
"The Hope VI Project was a valuable experience for me. I learned a lot about how city and federal Governments work. It was nice to do a lot of work and put in time to something that you know in the end is going to help people." --Ricky Reichenbach
"The Hope VI fellowship I pursued this summer was an extraordinary way to learn about the difficult process of urban planning and poverty de-concentration. It definitely was a great experience to assist Hope VI staff members to advertise the benefits of homeownership to low-income residents of the Utica area. Needless to say, it is rewarding to know that in some small way my fellowship contributed toward the establishment of better neighborhoods and better communities in one of the most impoverished areas of Utica. In addition, working wih the Municipal Housing Authority, with the YouthBuild project, and with professor Owens-Manley taught me a great deal about the process whereby federal funds are awarded and spent in local communities, which is an experience that is highly benefitial to me as a government student. I'm deeply grateful with the Levitt Center and with Hamilton College for providing me with the opportunity to pursue this challenging and rewarding fellowship." --Ernesto Medina
Communities That Care
"Hello, my name is Joshua Bruff, the 2004 Communities That Care (CTC) student fellowship recipient, and I will be a senior this upcoming fall. I have gained an incredible amount of experience, intelligence, and insight by doing this fellowship. Throughout the summer, the majority of my energy and devotion was committed to working at the Jesus Christ Tabernacle of David (JCTOD). Located in Johnson Park of Utica, JCTOD is a small church and also an Outreach of Youth Program designed to help local children and teenagers promote and encourage a safe, healthy and drug-free lifestyle to members of their respective community. Working in the Johnson Park area of Utica, where insiders of the community are falsely tagged and prejudged by outsiders as "hopeless," has shown me a harsh reality of life that I have only read about in newspaper articles or seen in movies. Therefore, I made it my personal goal to let the youth at JCTOD know they can and should do something positive with their lives so they can hush nay-sayers. My full-time presence at JCTOD this summer was heartfelt and a breath of fresh air to the majority of its youth participants because I am of the same race and color as they are. I told them that they too can live a drug-free life and earn a good education if they work hard at it daily. Being able to help steer youth in a positive direction has been very rewarding. I could not have done a better summer job."
Community Foundation
