Workforce Development in AmeriCorps

Natalie Jakub is proof that despite potential unfamiliarity, AmeriCorps service can leave a lasting impact on not just your community, but also yourself.

Jakub began her AmeriCorps journey in 2013 as an AmeriCorps VISTA member with Green Living Science in Detroit. When she applied, Jakub says she didn’t fully know what to expect or what AmeriCorps was outside of hearing of the federal agency for volunteerism and national service, but she knew she wanted to do “something in the nonprofit space,” and it felt like the place to start.

“I was working at a mortgage company at the time, and I hated it,” she said

Before that role, though, Jakub loved working at a nonprofit, which ultimately lost funding and had to close. She was looking for something else that felt fulfilling, while also in grad school getting her masters in eco-justice education. Having some flexibility and being in a role that prioritized her personal and professional growth with a mission she loved made her choice to apply easy, she said Green Living Science (GLS) is an outgrowth of Recycle Here!, Detroit’s drop-off recycling center and the city’s recycling program. The nonprofit was founded in 2007 because the Detroit Public Schools Community District wanted to bring its students education on recycling and natural resource conservation, all important things to help the Earth.

“After all, we only have one planet,” says Jakub. Throughout the years, GLS has served schools, businesses, and the local community with programs that promote environmental education, like class visits and school field trips, waste disposal education for all ages, and facilitating environmental lessons through interactive work books. GLS also helps community members sign up for free recycling carts and provides recycling workshops. After her first AmeriCorps service term with GLS, Jakub decided to stay on beyond that year as a volunteer coordinator. Much of her role was spent doing computer work where she planned and built a database for volunteer groups, but Jakub says she also wanted to feel like her work meant something. So, she contributed to the volunteer work, too, including planning events, cleanups, plantings. After that year, Jakub was hired in a more full-time capacity.

“I’m so grateful for that experience. I don’t think I would be here [at GLS] otherwise.”

But Jakub says GLS wouldn’t have the capacity to work on these programs and to grow if it weren’t for the financial and physical assistance from AmeriCorps. When she started with the organization, the team was small and the projects were limited (it was just her, another AmeriCorps member, and the executive director), but since partnering with AmeriCorps and being able to expand with more resources, not only has their team grown, but their ability to implement greener Earth initiatives into the community has grown tenfold, too. And growth within the nonprofit space is something to celebrate.

“The greatest benefit of AmeriCorps is that they help small nonprofits grow,” said Jakub. “It's really hard when you know the funds that you raise –– or don't raise –– have to go towards specific things,” said Jakub. “In a lot of cases, we see that philanthropy is focused on paying for programs, but not paying for the people to run the programs. Having an AmeriCorps partnership has helped us to build that capacity for the team who needs to focus on fundraising or program revenue to be able to shift their focus while the work is still getting done and systems are being built, so that when we are ready to bring someone onto those teams, we are running smoothly and efficiently.”

Ensuring their team is complete with people who are motivated and hardworking is something that has allowed GLS to grow to where it is now, too, she says. With the help of AmeriCorps, Jakub says GLS has been given opportunities to bring people on board who are “efficient, work hard, and care about our mission.”

“I don’t think people participate in AmeriCorps if they’re not passionate people.” Jakub says AmeriCorps one-year service terms, like how she got her start, are not only beneficial to host sites and their ability to serve their communities but can also bring an immeasurable amount of growth and opportunities to the AmeriCorps member…even if they weren’t quite sure what they were signing up for. In 2018, Jakub became the executive director of GLS, and over the last six plus years, one of her largest goals has been to ensure her organization’s relationship with AmeriCorps stays a priority, and that the people of Detroit are environmentally savvy.