2017-2018 Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs) will leave mid-summer
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Lauren LaMonica and Lacy Schimmel have served since last summer in Chinook as Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs) through the collaboration of five local churches. The two will be leaving Montana in July. Lauren is headed to Albuquerque, New Mexico for another year as a YAV and Lacy is in the final interview stage for a position as the Director of Youth and Family Outreach with a large Presbyterian Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Three new YAV's should be arriving in late July.
Lacy Schimmel and Lauren LaMonica, the Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs) who served in Chinook during the past year were given a farewell party recently. The two won't be moving on until late July, but with all the spring and summer activities coming up, the committee that supervises the YAV program decided this was the time to say a public good-bye. The event was held at the Chinook Senior Center.
Both Lacy and Lauren shared some of their reactions to a year in Chinook and what the future holds for them. Lacy, a native of the Green Bay, Wisconsin area, has completed a phone interview and will be traveling to Virginia Beach, Virginia the last week of April for a final interview at the Bayside Presbyterian Church in the coastal city. Lacy said, "I learned of the position through the YAV newsletter we receive each month. The church is looking for a Director of Youth and Family Outreach." She added that her experiences in Chinook working with children, youth and seniors helped her develop a skill set that should mesh with the new position. She hopes to have an answer if she was chosen for the job by early May.
Lauren has already been accepted for next year as a YAV in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The position will be working and living in the urban area with other YAVs and volunteers serving with other religious agencies. Chinook is the only YAV point of service where the YAVs live with individual families. In Albuquerque Lauren will be living at Menaual School, which she described as a dorm like housing unit.
In the interview Lauren was reminded that early on she said the reason she chose Chinook was "to see snow" because snow is so unusual in her native Dallas-Fort Worth area. After a record winter in Montana for snowfall and extended cold, she commented, "I'll have to remember to be careful what I wish for in the future." She's already checked on snow in New Mexico and learned, "If you want to see snow in Albuquerque you have to go to the mountains. That's just fine by me."
What this year's YAVs liked about north central Montana
Commenting earlier that she didn't expect to enjoy being "so immersed in the community,"
Lauren said, "One of the things we enjoyed most was visiting with people at the coffee clubs." Both Lacy and Lauren said, "Other YAVs, in the urban areas, are surprised when we tell them all the different jobs we do. Most YAV's work one program segment, like with children, a food bank or senior adults, exclusively. We work with pre-schoolers to seniors. We do the Food Pantry. We help in the kitchen at the Senior Center. We tutor kids in the school. And because there are so many churches involved we've learned to worship in a lot of different traditions. We were pretty much hard-core Presbyterians when we came here, we've learned a lot about how other traditions worship."
One thing they both commented on was tutoring math students. Lauren said, "We didn't do math when we first got here. Our supervisors said, "Well, that's what you do here." Every time we had a math tutoring session we would arrive early to brush up our own math skills." The fact they were both older than the typical YAV meant it had been a while since they "did math."
They agreed their favorite group to work with was kindergartners. Lauren explained, "We can discipline the kindergartners and still, when we leave, they beg us to 'stay just a little longer.'" Lacy said, "It's fun to be out in town and run into a kindergartner. They always recognize us if we are together."
The Young Adult Volunteer program begins its 8th year
Pastor Jack Mattingly, who is the contact for the local YAV program, gave a bit of the history of why Chinook was chosen as a YAV site while all other YAV programs are in major urban areas. He said, "It all started when Alec Arntzen, who got the JUMP program started in Chinook, was looking for some ways to keep the JUMP program energized. The presbyter at the time suggested Alec look into the Young Adult Volunteer program.
Alec held several meetings to gauge interest in hosting a YAV program, then set about making an application to host. The application was approved and, as Mattingly put it, "We were searching for our first YAV before we really knew what we were doing." Now the program will be hosting its 8th set of volunteers who will arrive in the summer.
Mattingly added, "We are hoping for three YAVs again next year. We already have one signed on from the Florida Keys. The day I interviewed her at another location it was -40 in Chinook. It was hard to explain to her what that felt like but she said she wanted to come to Montana." The new YAVs will arrive late summer.
Lauren is doing fundraising for her next assignment to Albuquerque. YAV's raise the funds to pay for part of the expenses of their year. Since she's a Texan, she's hosting a "Texas-style BBQ" on June 1 at the Chinook Eagles Club. Donations to help support the general YAV program can also be given to Pastor Mattingly.
The "Jounal" wishes this year's YAV a happy future as they pursue their new directions. And we look forward to meeting our next group of YAVs this summer, the eighth group to serve in Chinook.
