From helping youth problem-solve to leaving the planet better than they found it, local AmeriCorps members describe their time spent serving the agency as meaningful and empowering.
AmeriCorps, which celebrated a commemorative week March 10-16, is a federal agency that partners with nonprofits across the U.S. to strengthen communities and improve civic engagement.
At Common Threads Farm, Girl Scouts and the Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group, just three of the 12 programs across Whatcom and Skagit counties, four AmeriCorps members detailed how they are making a difference in the community.
Common Threads Farm
Common Threads Farm is a Bellingham-based nonprofit that partners with AmeriCorps members to teach kids about where their food comes from.
The Common Threads program has 25 AmeriCorps staff in 25 schools throughout Whatcom County.
Sarah Wheatley, 36, serves as garden program manager and Molly Monahan, 23, serves as a food educator, bringing gardening and cooking lessons to schools. AmeriCorps members guide students through the process of planting, harvesting and preparing foods while learning about the history and cultural relevance of each recipe.
Monahan has seen kids ask for more of the foods they originally didn’t like or want to try, which she attributes to the joy of being involved in the process of making meals from farm to table.
Wheatley has found that she has gained more respect for people who don’t share her political beliefs through working with public schools across Whatcom County, recognizing that many people, regardless of political affiliation, find it important to educate kids about where food comes from.
The programming at middle schools is focused on presenting students with ways they can make a difference in climate issues.
Monahan recently gave her students at Kulshan Middle School scenario cards where the students imagine being sugarcane farmers in Cambodia where the Mekong River is continuously flooding. She asked the kids, “What can you do based on what we just learned about selective breeding?” and the youth figured out solutions. Monahan said moments like this where students can apply what they learned, are steps in the right direction when it comes to climate anxiety.
“I feel like somewhere subconscious, the idea of [being able to] solve it [is] supportive for the paralysis that a lot of us have felt,” Monahan said.
Girl Scouts
2024 is AmeriCorp’s first year partnering with the Girl Scouts, serving four schools in Bellingham and three in Tacoma.
Meredith Carle, 25, serves as a Girl Scout enrichment instructor at these schools, where she and other AmeriCorps-affiliated Girl Scout leaders teach camping and sewing skills. Carle works to support the troops, volunteers and scouts, and is working with students at Western Washington University to get a campus Girl Scouts group organized.
“Campus Girl Scouts is a nationally organized Girl Scout opportunity that we haven’t had in the council for several years, so they don’t have all the infrastructure set up to support it,” Carle said.
One of Carle’s most rewarding moments throughout her service has been witnessing girls doing the right thing, even when they don’t have to. Carle recalled a time when candy was used as an incentive to pick up trash on a walk, but by the end of the activity, many scouts continued after leaders stopped offering the treats.
Carle said she has learned to expand equity, especially for neurodivergent students in Girl Scout programming through providing more hands-on, creative activities. When she and other engagement instructors decided to switch from a trivia-style game to a creative activity, scouts who were previously off-task became so focused on the task, they didn’t want to stop working on it.
After 12th grade, the Girl Scouts program transitions to adult scouting and volunteering, which anyone can be a part of, not just previous scouts. Carle has been a Girl Scout since kindergarten, and her current position marks her 20th year with the organization.
Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group
Connor Garrid, 22, serves at the Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group as the habitat restoration associate, where she works on salmon habitat restoration and coordinating volunteers.
One of Garrid’s most exciting experiences was when she first started, and Skagit Fisheries entrusted new AmeriCorps members to complete a long-postponed project: building a 40-foot pedestrian bridge. Garrid said being able to take on new projects and learn from different generations about the work she’s doing has been “super meaningful.”
Garrid is serving in AmeriCorps as a gap year between undergraduate and graduate school and said she has gained confidence and important field experience throughout her service term.
“Our riparian restoration manager, Nathan White, and our habitat coordinator, Mariah Crowley, [have been] amazing to work with. [Crowley] was actually the AmeriCorps member in my position last year … They’ve been really great at … taking me under their wing and letting me learn,” Garrid said.
