I’m published!

About a year ago now, I posted that I was to be published in the Elon Journal, an undergraduate research journal published by the School of Communications. It’s also believed by the school to be the only undergraduate research journal in communications in the country.

Well, it took forever, but my article is finally online. I am the third one down on the Elon Journal main page, where you can see a short video in which I describe my research. This video was filmed approximately 2 days before I graduated, so I was already on a mental vacation. :)

The PDF of my article can be found here. Enjoy!

Time to update Facebook

After I finished updating Greater DC Cares’ Twitter page (see below!), I decided to go ahead and update our Facebook page as well. 

Over the past two days, I searched for and “liked” 270 of our nonprofit partners. Whew! We follow many of these organizations on Twitter as well, but this way, we have multiple ways to keep up with our partners and help them spread the word about their successes, upcoming events and more. And hopefully they’ll return the favor!

Enhancing @greaterdccares

For the past few months, maintaining HandsOn Greater DC Cares‘ social media presence has been a team effort. We’ve not had a staff member in an expressly communications role for awhile now, and so many of us have been working together to update our Facebook and Twitter pages. Since this is a professional interest of mine, I have spent many hours lately tweeting, posting on Facebook and generally updating these pages.

This week, my self-assigned project was to go through our list of active nonprofit partners (which currently stands at 925 – perhaps it needs to be updated too) and make sure we’re following all of them on Twitter. Well, back up a second – that’s a slight exaggeration. Many of these partners are on Twitter, and I didn’t search for every single one of them. For example, I know for a fact without looking that Operation Blessings, a tiny operation run out of a church in Northeast DC, does not have a website, much less a Twitter page.

But over the last two days, I searched for a large number of these nonprofits. I wound up following 73 new organizations,  approximately an eight percent increase in the number of people we follow on Twitter. This is only approximate, as I wound up unfollowing some random organizations we have no affiliation with in an attempt to clean up our Twitter feed a bit.

In addition, I added all of our nonprofit partners on Twitter (including those we already were following) to a new list called “Nonprofit Partners” (creative, I know). There are currently 210 organizations on this list. Since many local nonprofits use their connection with us to increase their credibility in the region, I feel that it’s important for us to publicize our partners in as many ways as possible. Further, this list can serve as a good resource for anyone looking for a somewhat comprehensive list of nonprofits in the D.C. metropolitan area.

This effort has also resulted in 13 new followers in the past 24 hours, seven of which are nonprofit partners of ours, and others of which may be related to this effort (i.e. the communications people at these organizations also choosing to follow @greaterdccares).

And now, now that I’ve finished with Twitter, I move on to “liking” our nonprofit partners on Facebook…

My infographic resume

I recently updated my infographic resume, which I created via Vizualize.me. Now that I’ve finally admitted to myself what a visual learner I am, I am all about visually representing facts and concepts. While there is hardly any information on this infographic that isn’t on my resume page on this blog, I still think it’s a fun and different way of looking at work experience!

via My Infographic Resume.

My Foursquare problem

Continuing on my social media bent… I figured it was high time I admitted to something: I am a Foursquare addict. I check in everywhere I go (with the exception of my house and the living quarters of others).

In the past 30 days, I’ve checked in 91 times at 54 different venues. For you more visual learners, here’s a map of my May check ins:

Image

Most of my May check ins occurred when I spent 4 days in Seattle visiting my boyfriend (who really does not understand my compulsive need to check in everywhere I go):

And that’s just the month of May. I’ve been a Foursquare user since January 10, 2012, when I purchased my iPhone. The map of my check ins on the Foursquare website is much more impressive, yet much less amenable to posting (someone should get on that…).

Why do I use Foursquare? Well, it depends. When I check in at places like the mall or my favorite restaurant, I’m probably just over-sharing. But when I check in at places in Northeast DC while working, I like to think I’m helping myself professionally. My Foursquare account is linked to my Twitter account, which I have used as a mixture of a personal and professional platform of late. But when those I work with in Northeast DC see me checking in around town as I work, I think it lends some credibility to my efforts to engage with the community rather than embody the ‘”parachute” model (just dropping in to fix something and leaving when it’s done).

While I see the obvious benefits of Foursquare to a location that sells a product or service, it is not as evident how a nonprofit like the one I work for where clients do not visit our office can use Foursquare to its advantage. This is something I look forward to exploring throughout my professional career. In the meantime, you can find me obsessively checking in wherever I go and feverishly working to maintaining my mayorships (back off, coworkers!).

Pinterest

Well, of course I’m on Pinterest. Most things I pin are future wishes or ambitions- wishes of places to go, ways to decorate the apartment I’m wishing for, ideas for the wedding I hope to have in several years (to a yet unnamed groom). But as someone who is a visual learner (something I’ve only just recently admitted to myself), Pinterest is a dream come true. In the past, I’ve wanted to tear ideas out of magazines. But then the more practical side of me gets in the way and demands to know what exactly I am going to do with that inspiring scrap until I need it. And my practical side convinces me (and I believe rightly so) that I will never look at that scrap ever again.

So enter Pinterest, an online space that takes up no physical room and that I can feasibly organize in a manner that might make sense again later. Even if I never make those yummy looking cheesy quinoa cakes, I’ve been inspired. So there.

See the things I like here. And I won’t assume they’ll attract you like they do me.

Another blog post

One of my requirements as an AmeriCorps VISTA under the HandsOn Network is to write a blog post about my experiences as a VISTA. So in mid-February, I wrote about my experience on our Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service – with the First Family.

A Simple Thank You Can Go A Long Way

From the outset, my role as a VISTA at HandsOn Greater DC Cares in Washington, D.C. has required me to wear a lot of hats. There are five of us “neighboring VISTAs,” as we’re called here, and we pretty much have our hands in everything the organization does. We’re constantly meeting with residents and nonprofits, telling them about our various programs, volunteer opportunities and the various ways we help build the capacity of over 800 organizations across the D.C. metropolitan area.

The four large days of service we put on annually have proved to be a great way to make a positive difference in our neighborhoods, whether it is because we’re able to engage groups of community volunteers or because we are able to accomplish large projects that make a noticeable difference at local nonprofits. Back in September, I visited a school in my neighborhood that serves over 420 low-income kids from Head Start through 8th grade. It was too late to prepare a project for the 9/11 weekend of service, but I promised the principal she would be the first on my list for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service.

Sure enough, when December rolled around, I visited the school once more to finalize the project, which included painting murals in the dull, off-white bathrooms per the request of the student body, cleaning some classrooms and painting words of character on the walls of the plain middle school hallway. These small improvements together would make the school a happier, more encouraging place to learn. But the Sunday before MLK Day, I received a call that changed the whole day: the President of the United States was coming to the school that day too!

When we arrived at the school, my 22 volunteers were confused by the extra security, large numbers of people milling about and my hesitancy to give them any details. Once we were allowed inside, we were funneled into the school’s cafeteria with other volunteer groups. As soon as they saw the “Serve.gov” banner, my volunteers knew exactly what was about to happen. Within the hour, the President, First Lady and oldest daughter, Malia, were speaking to us about the importance of living Dr. King’s legacy through service. The president noted that everyone has the power to make a positive difference in their community, in ways large and small, something we continually emphasize in our neighboring model.

After the president spoke, I expected that he would move off to his project with his family. But when he put the microphone down, he didn’t leave the room. Instead, he walked around and asked every single volunteer their name, shook their hand and thanked them for serving. Mrs. Obama and Malia followed behind doing the same. After meeting the First Family, my volunteers were on Cloud 9 and all the more motivated to make it a great day of service. Due to security constraints, we were only able to complete part of our planned project. But the impact of hearing the president commend volunteer efforts will surely inspire me and my volunteers for years to come as we all work to make Washington, D.C. a better place to live.

Linda Kurtz

HandsOn Corps VISTA: HandsOn Greater DC Cares

Planning for life post-AmeriCorps

I realize I have been rather remiss in updating this blog of late. And by “of late,” I mean the last six months or so. The thing is, my job isn’t communications-y. So I’ve really not created much of anything to add!

In the past few weeks, I have increasingly become responsible for the social media pages here at HandsOn Greater DC Cares. So check us out on Facebook and twitter.

Now that I am over halfway through my term of service, I have started to plan for my life post-AmeriCorps. I’ve made a couple of decisions in the past few days, and I am feeling so happy to have a plan. I recently accepted my admission into American University’s School of Communication, where I will be pursuing a M.A. in Public Communication full time starting in late August. I’ll have the degree in about 10 months.

While I’m in school, I also plan to work part time. As of right now, I think my ideal job would be a part time social media coordinator for a nonprofit here in DC, perhaps one with a focus on education. But I will just have to see what’s out there once I start really looking in a couple of months.

And hopefully I’ll start to get a little better about updating this thing, too.

Playing with the parables at Vacation Bible School

Last week, I spent my mornings as a Shepherd Leader for a group of 12 rising 2nd and 3rd graders at my church, singing, dancing, worshiping and basically playing. What a fun time! This is my third summer as a Vacation Bible School leader, and my group of kids this year might have been my favorite! We covered a variety of topics together, including Angry Birds, colossal squid, pregnancy, guide dogs, good people, bad people and gender roles. Oh, and Jesus and the parables. Below are a few pictures I took during the week. I would like to mention, however, that the lighting in my church is TERRIBLE. Though I will also admit I have a tendency to edit my pictures a bit too red. Working on it!