How to build (and rebuild) a community center in rural West Virginia.

Mr. Garner served in New Mexico, 1965. Currently, he is a writer/landlord in California. An earlier version of this account was published in the Santa Fe Reporter on 10 February 1988

Scott served with Longfellow Adult Learning Center in Owensboro, KY, doing everything from Art exhibition-fundraisers to setting up literacy outreach programs and developing volunteer recruitment strategies.

James Thibeault came to West Virginia in 1970 to help with pollution issues due to coal mining. The following account is the first installment from his larger manuscript of the experience.

Provocative reflections after service with Economic development initiative.

This poem was originally published in Ironwood, Vol 12 No 1.
For more poems by Hilde Weisert, please visit
https://hildeweisert.com/

Living her assignment at a domestic violence shelter along the eastern shore of Virginia.

I’ve been transcribing,editing and annotating my early Alaska letters (1969-77) and various writings — here’ a Chauthbaluk Christmas for your enjoyment.

She stood up to go and I pulled her back down, hissing, “Not in my lifetime.” I didn’t see the irony until later…

The original of this informal VISTA Newsletter was given to Oregon state office in 1994 by Ben Hatchett. Mr. Hatchett’s aunt, Florence Fulton, had served as a VISTA and saved it, along with other materials. Whimsical, irreverent, detailed… it is a time capsule that reveals much of the early VISTA experience as well as the times.

While they were driving back from a branch meeting on Pigeon Forge, Escoe talked about his pension for coon hunting. One of the girls, a broad waist believer from Wheaton College shuttered her body in discust. One thing led to another and like most of the conversation that took place that day, it was soon discovered that what they had here was the inevitable failure to communicate syndrome.

Preparing to leave assignment in Appalachia

Linda served with the Bennington-Rutland Opportunity Council from February 1971 to 1974 in Vermont. Currently, she is a nurse.

Literacy efforts in rural Maricopa County.

James Thibeault came to West Virginia in 1970 to help with pollution issues due to coal mining. Here are the voices of two women in an Appalachian mining town over 30 years ago.

A Letter from Leah Williams to a friend during service in rural Appalachia.

Ivy was one of the first VISTA Volunteers, serving in rural Appalachia, Kentucky, in 1965. During the years after her service, she collected her amazing experiences toward publishing a book.

I am the son of two former VISTA Participants (Sadie Kuehn nee Sams and Larry Kuehn) and my mother told me a great story about a run in she had with George Wallace while on the VISTA program in Florida. I have written it up and it follows.  I hope it is of some interest.

On the Cabin Creek Quilt project I was known as Nema’s girl, and it felt good to know that someone with the quiet dignity and hard life of Nema would take to a city person such as myself.

Ellen didn't do the Peace Corps. She did VISTA with the Public Library's Literacy Center/San Diego Council on Literacy in Chula Vista.

Jim Adolf, Philadelphia , 1994, offers a few snapshots of life in a Philadelphia school. The overall goal of the project was to introduce volunteering into the school curriculum.

One day in the Summer of 93, Ms. Hamilton put her belongings in her car and drove from her home, New York City area, to northern Kentucky with the assignment to expand literacy services there. These excerpted journal entries give some insight into the issues (loniliness) of making a new home.

Loralie remarked to me once that white people think Indians are dumb because they don't have a written history and a written language. She said, If we don;t remember what we are told, then it was not ours to know. Medicine men learn everything by watching and hearing. Then they can do it. We remember. This struck me. And I guess thats why I've written so little about what I've heard from her and others about Navajo beliefs and traditions. I don't want to betray her. I want to remember.

Describes a community that wants two things.

Richly detailed journal of the VISTA experience in Arkansas, 1977

Fiji in Cincinnati – A Peace Corps Alum doing VISTA.

Teaching literacy at a prison in Ketchikan, Alaska

…Everywhere I looked I saw hatred and rage. Then, Martin Luther King came walking by. The crowd's actions intensified. Someone threw a bottle that just missed him. He continued staring straight ahead, walking proud and tall…

Started her life work with migrant farmworkers, as a VISTA. She's probably been funny all her life, though.