Current VISTA Projects

The VISTA Neighborhood Assistance Project, with a nine member team, began in 2006. Closely aligning with the Weed and Seed Initiative, the Neighborhood Assistance Project began several initiatives that continue post-flood.

Community and Economic Development

Matthew 25: Cultivate Hope
The spring season of 2009, the Matthew 25 Ministry Hub organized an effort to help beautify some of the flooded neighborhoods by placing decorated flowerpots on street corners and planting flowerbeds. Many VISTA members assisted in painting, planting, and distributing the flower-pots.

Matthew 25: Music Mentoring
This program pairs elementary students with adult musicians to offer both music lessons and extra support for youth development.

Jane Boyd: Afterschool programs
Jane Boyd provides year-round programming for at-risk youth on south-east Cedar Rapids, including tutoring, mentoring, and various trips to community cultural societies.

United Way of East Central Iowa: Ready by 21
Ready by 21 is a national challenge started by the Forum for Youth Investment, which is as stated on their website, "a nonprofit, nonpartisan "action tank" dedicated to helping communities and the nation make sure all young people are Ready by 21®" This will only be accomplished if dedicated leaders work together to create opportunities for our youth to develop in positive ways. The youth will learn regardless, it is up to us to offer them positive environments from which to learn to be successful people. Our future depends on us educating all of our children in all aspects of life.

United Way of East Central Iowa: Linn County Hunger Free Network
The Hunger Free Network is a coalition of local food providers, which seeks to understand the barriers to community members’ fulfillment of nutrition needs. This takes place through scheduling and facilitating Think Tank meetings, and creating and distributing surveys for local food recipients and pantries.

Taylor Elementary School: Tiger Cub Club
Tiger Club is a no charge before/after school program available to students attending Taylor Elementary School on the city's S.W. side. Homework help, gardening/nutrition, crafts and fitness fun are some of the activities Tiger Cub Club members participate in.

VITA
Through coordination with the IRS and various federal, state, and local agencies, VITA Centers have been opened in the target neighborhoods in order to address these financial issues. Last year VISTA members were responsible for the generation of $2,479,895.
VISTA members also work to increase financial education available to target area populations. Current projects include Money Smart Week and financial education workshops.

Neighborhood Assistance Program
Residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods lack more than just financial resources; often missing is the fundamental cohesiveness that holds productive communities together. VISTA members seek to coordinate and build services provided at the centers.

The Cedar Rapids Time Bank Project
The Time Bank is a project to create a community based on volunteerism. Its goal is to connect neighbors and build community spirit through sharing our gifts and talents with each other.

Broadway Center in Johnson County
The Broadway Center in Iowa City serves the community’s southeast side. Programs such as a weekly knitting, crocheting and bead work class called Stitchin’ in the Kitchen have started to serve the youth population at the Broadway Center. There are also after school open game nights to bring it older children who are not already involved in other programs.

Pheasant Ridge Center in Johnson County
Programs such as a weekly healthy cooking class have started at the Pheasant Ridge Neighborhood Center to address nutritional needs and other healthy lifestyle choices.

CCIA Restorative Justice Mentoring Programs in both Linn and Johnson Co.
The vision is to create a community in which every offender experiences nurturing one-to-one relationships and community support, which in turn allows each of them to develop into their full potential, capable of making informed and responsible decisions as involved, law abiding members of our community.

Children of Promise in Johnson County
The Children of Promise mentoring program uses adult volunteers to commit to supporting, guiding, and being a positive role model to a child of an incarcerated parent for at least a year.

Matthew 25 Community Café
Some VISTA members are helping Matthew 25 establish a cafe on the Near West side of the river. The Cafe will be a safe and welcoming gathering space for local artists and youths. Workers will learn valuable job skills and students will have a place to display their artwork and perform music for their peers.

Cedar Rapids Neighborhood Associations
The various neighborhood associations of Cedar Rapids are the non-profit entities that help the residences of Cedar Rapids meet the needs of the neighbors and establish identity of each area. VISTA are helping to establish better communication between these groups by helping to establish the aid agency to the neighborhoods, Cedar Rapids Neighborhoods (CRN).

Financial Education
In the Fall, the Healthy Wallet Workshop Series began as a pilot program for the AmeriCorps VISTA members. Over four sessions, participants learned more about budgeting, consumer credit protection, principles of investing, and other money-saving resources available in the community. In April, the Healthy Wallet Workshop Series will be offered to the public during Money Smart Week.
On Saturday, February 13, 2010, the VITA Super Tax Saturday event will combine free tax preparation and an opportunity for attendees to speak with representatives from various banks, credit unions and other financial and social service organizations throughout the Cedar Rapids area.

Housing

Linn County Public Health: Healthy Homes
Healthy Homes is a department of the Linn County Public Health which focuses on local indoor air quality (IAQ) through performing free IAQ inspections, making recommendations to home owners, and advocating for improving indoor conditions that negatively impact residents’ health.

Flood Recovery
On June 13, 2008 the Cedar River crested at 31.12 feet – 11.12 feet above the previous record. The damage was greater than anyone could have imagined leaving the community devastated.
On June 14, 2008 CCIA answered the call to service, accepting the challenge to recruit and mobilize a 100 VISTA member team to assist with the recovery efforts in the Cedar Rapids community. This was an unprecedented mobilization of VISTA members.
In response to the widespread devastation, our program is now known as the VISTA Flood Recovery Program. While we still strive to meet all pre-flood needs in our target area, there are new, urgent poverty issues that must be addressed.

Mission of Hope: The Day House
This shelter is a place for people on the streets to rest, eat a noon-meal, socialize, and access food and clothing resources.

Mission of Hope: The Mission of Hope Shelter
This shelter offers room and board to the homeless of Cedar Rapids for a nightly fee. Through its case management services, it also connects its residents with social services and job-finding resources.

UMCOR: Block by Block
This local recovery organization is a local coalition of private resource generators and recovery-focused organizations, including Matthew 25. Its unique approach to neighborhood recovery brings neighbors together through the entire recovery process one block at a time. Through cooperation and collaboration, families help others and nation-wide volunteers contribute as well.

Iowa City Overflow Homeless Shelter
The Overflow Homeless Shelter provides warm, safe shelter for people during the coldest nights of the year, and Shelter House, Johnson County’s only general use homeless shelter fills beyond capacity.

BRIGHTEN
Through coordination with local neighborhood associations and the Cedar Rapids Housing Department, a neighborhood restoration strategy aimed at addressing abandoned and sub-standard housing and increasing affordable housing is underway.
BRIGHTEN is a grassroots initiative to address housing and zoning code violations with the help of the community. Community wide events occur the third Saturday of each summer month.

WRAP: Wheelchair Ramp Accessibility Program

Homeless Initiatives

Public Safety

Linn County Public Health: Pest Management
AmeriCorps VISTAs assisted in alleviating risk of disease vectors through monitoring mosquito populations, responding to reports of mosquito breeding locations, and sampling sentry chickens for mosquito-borne diseases

Linn County Public Health: H1N1 Response
With the recent increases in public health involvement in the community, our VISTA members have stepped up to share the burden of maintaining thorough documentation of the mass vaccination clinics held by the LCPH.

Matthew 25:Tool Lending Library
After the Flood of 2008, local homeowners had many issues to deal with in restarting their lives, and establishing a sense of home in the Cedar Rapids Community. The Matthew 25 Ministry has responded in many ways to assist local community members, and one of their projects was to establish a free tool rental program to help homeowners save on the cost of tool rental in the rebuilding process

Other

Paul Engle Center

ICON
ICON is a research project involving VISTA members working within the Department of Corrections, Iowa Corrections Offender Network database. VISTA members extract and analyze pertinent data regarding the rates of success for individuals in the correctional system, after they are released from prison.

Iowa City Bike Library
The Bike Library is a non-profit organization whose mission is to make bikes accessible and affordable to all. The Bike Library takes donated bikes and rehabs them, then loans them out for a small deposit. Each bike that goes out the door of the Bike Library has the proper reflectors attached, and if the new rider needs them, a free helmet. Hope House members also volunteer their time at the bike library every Sunday.

VISTA Leader Workshops
VISTA leaders support and coordinate larger VISTA projects in their efforts to address the needs of low-income communities. They serve as role models, trainers, and resource providers who strengthen the leadership capacity of VISTAs, VISTA projects, and community members. Just as VISTAs work to expand and build capacity of community projects, leaders work to expand and build the capacity of individual VISTA members and their respective service sites. This past winter, VISTA Leaders planned and implemented a series of Life After AmeriCorps workshops for VISTA members. Learn more about their great workshop series.