The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

Volunteer reports on year of 'war on poverty'

Miami grad worked with students to highlight problems.

AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer Jessica Reading concluded her term at Miami University Hamilton with a discussion of her experiences and efforts in poverty alleviation in Hamilton with a presentation at MUH Downtown on Tuesday, June 8.

Staff photo by Nick Daggy AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer Jessica Reading concluded her term at Miami University Hamilton with a discussion of her experiences and efforts in poverty alleviation in Hamilton with a presentation at MUH Downtown on Tuesday, June 8.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Explosion, fire destroy house; propane tank may be to blame
11:29 a.m.
Police seek help locating man who may have information about shooting death
9:31 a.m.
Cooler weather, wind today with chance of rain
8:54 a.m.
Nearly 100 deadbeat parents arrested in August
7:57 a.m.
Sheriff asks judges to help reduce jail overcrowding
7:29 a.m.
> More headlines

E-mail this page

By Richard O Jones, Staff Writer 10:59 PM Tuesday, June 8, 2010

HAMILTON — She was only there a year, but her immersion into the Miami University Hamilton campus and local service organizations gave Jennifer Reading a sense of place that she felt she missed growing up in San Diego, Calif.

After graduating from Miami University in Oxford, Reading signed up for a year with AmeriCorps VISTA, a program founded by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 to “fight the war on poverty.”

Reading joined through an organization called Ohio/Campus Compact, which this year placed 35 recent college graduates in VISTA volunteer positions. She was placed at Miami University Hamilton in the Office of Civic Engagement to explore ways of alleviating poverty in Hamilton.

“Service was something I wanted to do with my life, so I had to look at what that would mean,” Reading told a crowd of collaborators and community members Tuesday, June 8, at MUH Downtown.

Hamilton was chosen for the project because it has poverty and jobless rates that are much higher than the county and state as a whole.

Her year of service had three goals, she said, including increasing “volunteer-based campus and community programs to improve the capacity to serve surrounding low-income communities” and “campus/community partnerships to expose youth and community to community to college access programs.”

It was the third goal, to “implement programs related to developing civic capacity on campus and in the community,” that resulted in what she considers her biggest success: The creation of a “staycation” for a group of students who eschewed a week on the beach for a “poverty simulation,” to live life like a homeless person in Hamilton.

“This work is really important, and I feel I’ve changed as a result of it and the overall campus community has changes a little bit,” she said.

“We learned that evoking a sense of community was as important as working on poverty issues. If we are going to alleviate poverty, we have to have a sense of belonging to the community.”

During the question and answer session that followed, Reading said that her biggest personal discovery during her year was finding “a sense of hope in the different people I worked with, of really caring about the community and wanting to see it flourish in some way.”

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.

Share this article

ADD COMMENT

Comments feed

The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, ....

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

Article 3 - US Constitution
6:50 PM, 6/10/2010

REPORT ABUSE

You're the Idiot - I accept the US Constitution as it was written. The question is, why don't you? Federal courts were never intended to have the broad authority to invent law out of whole cloth, nor to empower to the central government to dhwtaver it pleases under the guise of "general welfare."

Its a threat to Liberty to let government do what it wants. Government is coercion and thuggery. Why do you hate Liberty?

Uncle Andy
12:44 PM, 6/10/2010

REPORT ABUSE

Uncle Andy obviously disagrees with the US Constitution. He thinks Article 3 should be repealed. Unfortunately, he forgets that it is the supreme law of the land. He ignores the fact that he has the ability to not worry about the Supreme Court. But, since he insists on staying in the United States, he is stuck with the US Constitution. Maybe, when he turns 18, he will be able to move to another country (if he can find one who accepts fools).

What an idiot
12:13 PM, 6/10/2010

REPORT ABUSE

By contending that the Constitution means whatever the whims of an unelected oligarch judge says it means is to essentially say that we have no Constitution. If the law is whatever some judge dreams up, why have a law? Why not just have a society of personalities, not a society of law?

Uncle Andy
8:58 AM, 6/10/2010

REPORT ABUSE

What Auntie Stalin here wants is the tyrannical rule of the mob, incited by demagogues. As John Adams once said, "a mob is no less a mob because they are with you." The federal government, even if fueled by the ignorant passions and whims of the mob, has no lawful authority to deprive people of life, Liberty, or property by acting outside its Constitutional boundries. To be sure, they have the goons, guns and badges to enforce whatever whim they like. That's just brute tyranny. Not justice.

Uncle Andy
8:43 AM, 6/10/2010

REPORT ABUSE

There are 34 additional comments

SHOW ALL

We welcome your comments. Please remember this is a public forum and behave appropriately. Your comments must conform to our visitor's agreement.