By Janice Ingling, RSVP Director, North Central RSVP serving Itasca and Koochiching Counties in Minnesota

SPRING 2000 (archived information - please note the date of publication)

When I became the RSVP director in 1981, the program was not very involved with intergenerational activities in our communities, and there was little name recognition for RSVP in our two-county area. We had three or four RSVP volunteers working in one school for the Rocking Chair Reader project. It was a starting point-the challenge was to get the word out and to further expand the use of our services.

Media Exposure is Key
It made sense to capitalize on the appeal of seniors working with children, so we made sure that the Rocking Chair Reader project was in the news with an aggressive publicity campaign, by producing a video with children and their senior friends, and by generally "talking it up" wherever and whenever an opportunity presented itself. Nurturing this school partnership, small though it was, became the key factor to our expansion into other schools and districts. We were asked to help establish a similar reading project in another school, and we also helped set up Special Reading Friends, modeled after Rocking Chair Reader, in two other schools. As Rocking Chair Reader and Special Reading Friends became known in the community, other schools began asking us to partner with them. We received a grant for Read With Me, a reading project with Head Start. Volunteers were placed in ten classrooms to read to children. To encourage more reading at home by parents, we held a contest and awarded a gift book to each child whose parent read a book to them every day in the month of April. This exposed RSVP to Head Start sites in rural communities in our two-county service area, and again we promoted the project vigorously and worked closely with Head Start staff and our volunteers.

One of the long-range plans for intergenerational programming was to establish RSVP as a willing partner and indispensable community resource. We focused our energy not only on sustaining but also expanding the program through a planning process that included RSVP staff, advisory council members, school administrators, teachers, and volunteers. We attended every meeting we could that had anything at all to do with children and youth, including meetings on school grant planning, Safe and Drug Free Schools, asset development, and the Children First program. We served on committees, planning groups, and boards.

Part of our strategy was to let everyone know exactly what we were doing, through every possible media outlet. We planned special art projects that created high visibility for RSVP, and while we didn't have a budget to fund them, we didn't let a lack of money stop us. Our partners included the school where the project took place, who wrote a small grant for supplies, and a local art gallery, which provided gallery space, copying, refreshments, and supplies. We also received money from the United Way for other expenses. The projects, which last for six weeks, always end with a celebration and showing at the art gallery, complete with a photo session, and the finale is being part of the art gallery's formal opening for the month. These become publicity gold mines!

Finding the Need, Filling the Niche
Last year we received an America Reads grant, which greatly increased our capacity to provide reading tutors for children. Before applying for the grant, we did our homework and knew what the schools wanted and needed. We met with potential volunteers, school administrators, and teachers from the target schools, and members of the advisory council. The teachers gave us input on training and helped us further define the tutors' roles. We recruited, trained, and placed tutors in second grades in three elementary schools in our two-county service area.

Our consistent efforts in intergenerational programming paid off when in March 1999 we received an AmeriCorps VISTA member for our program. Her task is to expand into all six school districts and their 18 elementary schools with America Reads*America Counts. We have prepared the way by visiting with all of the principals and superintendents, and have received their enthusiastic support. They assured us that they really need our volunteers and welcome them with open arms.

Here are some lessons we have learned in sustaining our RSVP program:

• Build on and strengthen what you already have.
• Start something new and different.
• Develop relationships with potential funders and community leaders, and form partnerships wherever possible.
• Research community needs you are addressing-do your homework.
• Promote your program in every possible way as often as you can, and take lots of photos.
• Offer your help, stay flexible, keep your sense of humor, and, most important of all:
  
  • Publicly promote and recognize the value of your volunteers; and
  • Take good care of your stations; promote and recognize each one.

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