Helloooo USM!

Hi all!

I wanted to take a few minutes to introduce myself! My name is Amanda Vickerson, and I am one of three AmeriCorps VISTAs at the Office of Community Service and Civic Engagement this year.

I am a native Mainer; I grew up in Scarborough and graduated from SHS in 2003. After that, I decided to stay in Maine for my education and attended Colby College in Waterville. I graduated with a BA in Women’s, Gender & Sexuality studies and a minor in Education. During my time at Colby, I became really interested in service learning and civic engagement. I think it’s really important to be active in the community in which your school resides, and thus, I was an assistant teacher at a local elementary school for three years. I was able to get involved on a really personal level through direct service learning, and I loved it!

After college, I decided to follow a lot of my friends down to the “big city” of Boston. It turned out that Boston was too large and impersonal, and so I decided to return home to Maine. The AmeriCorps VISTA program is a great option for me because it allows me to jump right into a position and start learning as I go! We might be a small office, but with so much enthusiasm, I think we should be able to get things up and running like USM has never seen before!

At USM, I plan to revisit the mentoring program to see how it can be more cohesive and successful. There is already a huge demand for mentoring, so I hope to streamline that process by expanding our partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southern Maine.

If you want to become a mentor, shoot me an email at avickerson@usm.maine.edu, Facebook me, call me at 780-4537, or just stop by the office!

I’m looking forward to the coming year and I hope to get everyone as excited about volunteering as I am!

Come say hi! :)

Amanda