Urban Farming Meets Independent Publishing

You have probably heard the advise: “Pick one thing and gain mastery in it.” That is not how NCCC works and it is not how entrepreneur Nic Esposito works either. He has followed multiple passions writing, farming (land management) and family- we ask him how he does it all.

Take aways:

  • We just passed the 10th anniversary of Katrina, AmeriCorps members played a crucial roll in rebuilding New Orleans and Nic was one of those members!
  • How to Live, work and run a business with your spouse
  • Starting a business is about meeting an unmet need, addressing unmet needs is what AmeriCorps members do best
  • Books in a vending machine?
  • How do we re-connect to the process, the process of growing food or creating a book?

Check out his TEDx talk here.

Watch other interviews from our Journey to Social Entrepreneurship Summit.

in Stories  by 16 Feb 2016 0 comments

Bread and Business Acumen

When Markey Culver signed up for the Peace Corps, she requested to go anywhere besides Rwanda…she was placed in Rwanda and 2 years later the reason became clear. She “accidentally” founded The Women’s Bakery.

She spent her first year as a PCV eating 1 meal a day in solidarity with the villagers where she served. Eventually, hunger inspired her to get creative with local ingredients.

Take aways:

  • Markey built a bakery that was later bulldozed- a great lesson in capacity building
  • How do you create hyper-local economies that are reliable?
  • What can Hamburger University teach us about development?

NOTE: apologies for the feedback in the background

 

Watch other interviews from our Journey to Social Entrepreneurship Summit.

in Stories  by 16 Feb 2016 0 comments

Yoga, Intuition and Leadership

Breyn Hibbs felt drawn to Shakti Rising the minute she walked in the door as an intern studying at University of San Diego. After volunteering there for a few months she applied for the AmeriCorps VISTA positions in order to dedicate a whole year to the organization she loved. Now Breyn leads the Oregon “tribe” of Shakti Rising from the “temple” of Sol Alchemy a yoga studio in Bend, OR.

 

Points of Interest

  • Choosing between academia and working in the field
  • Strengthening your intuition and energetic field (and why this matters for social change)
  • How leadership starts with personal growth

 

 

Breyn was the seventh speaker at the Journey to Social Entrepreneurship virtual summit hosted the week of January 18th, 2016.  The recordings are available at the link below. 

ACCESS OTHER #JOURNEY2SOCENT SPEAKERS

in Stories  by 09 Feb 2016 0 comments

Guide Profile: Stacey Williams

StaceyWorkingName: Stacey Williams
Profession: Field Instructor & Student Wellness Coordinator, Institute for Sustainable Development Studies Institute

University: Westmont College (undergrad) / University of San Diego (grad school)
Major: B.A in Social Science and a M.A in Higher Education Leadership
Service Type: AmeriCorps VISTA and VISTA Leader

Service Dates: July 2009 – July 2011

Service Location: Pensacola, FL

 

Native to San Diego, Stacey jumped into a year of service directly after college because she felt like her degree was a glorified piece of paper (what is Social Science anyway?) and she wanted to gain some practical experience in domestic nonprofits. Stacey was brought on to serve as a project coordinator with United Way’s clearinghouse and 24/7 call service, 2-1-1, and the EscaRosa Coalition on the Homeless. A few months into Stacey’s second year, the BP/Horizon Oil Spill happened and she stepped into the role of VISTA Leader to coordinate a new team of volunteers coming to support the economic recovery efforts following the spill. At the end of all of this, Stacey had a much clearer understanding of the health and human service sector… and she was pretty disillusioned with a lot of what she’d seen. Burnt out and concerned about how much of her work felt like addressing symptoms, she recognized that her favorite parts of her service-years were in facilitating service and development opportunities for others. With that, she returned to school to obtain a graduate degree in Higher Education Leadership. While studying, she worked at the University of San Diego’s Women’s Center focused on social justice education and  leadership development. During this time, she began to cultivate her vision of social change as an internal process. In 2013, Stacey embarked on an adventure in international education. Since then, she has taught programs with three different organizations in eight countries. From facilitating human-centered design to asking big questions like Who Am I? and What is Development? to honoring the village-as-teacher, Stacey accompanies students on journeys around the world and within themselves. Sometimes, she also writes about these experiences at www.staceystravels.com.

 

in Stories  by 08 Feb 2016 0 comments

From the Classroom to a Tech Startup

Alicia Herald claims that she is neither a natural born teacher nor a natural born entrepreneur, yet when she noticed the need for a technology platform that matches teachers with value aligned schools her mentor asked her to take the lead. Alicia is the founder of myEDmatch, launched in October of 2012, they have raised $2.89M in angel and Series A investment. In 2015, St. Louis Business Journal named myEDmatch the Most Innovative Company in Education. Alicia’s path toward education reform started when a friend convinced her to meet with a Teach For America recruiter at her university’s bakery…watch to hear more about her inspiring career. 

Points of interest

  • Teacher turnover has more to do with job fit then low salary and hard work (most teachers know what they are signing up for after all)
  • How does someone with no computer science background launch a tech start-up?
  • The education gap in America is wide but there is plenty of room for technological innovation in a system critical to addressing injustice in this country

 

Alicia was the first speaker at the Journey to Social entrepreneurship virtual summit hosted the week of January 18th, 2016.  The recordings are available at the link below. 

 

Access other #Journey2SocEnt Speakers

 

in Stories  by 02 Feb 2016 1 comments

Hil Miller: Guide Profile

Name: Hil MillerHil

Profession: Senior Systems Administrator at the Texas Advanced Computing Center

University: University of Florida / University of Texas at Austin


Major: B.A. in Sociology / M.S.E. in Engineering Management

Service Type: AmeriCorps

Service Dates: 2005 – 2007

Service Location: The Dignity Project of Alachua County in Gainesville, Florida

 

I joined Americorps in 2005 as a computer repair technician at The Dignity Project of Alachua County. My year of service was spent fixing old and broken computers for donation to the local community. Today I am privileged to support some of the most advanced computing technologies in the world. From my perspective, doing a year of service doesn’t necessarily mean moving to a rural area halfway across the world or tagging sea turtles on the beach of a remote island. I consider my current position facilitating the science to solve the complex problems facing humanity to be a form of non-traditional service and a continuation of my Americorps service nearly a decade ago.

 

You might not know if you should register for classes next semester. You might have the next 10 years of your life planned-out in an elaborate multi-page color-coded spreadsheet. For either of those situations and everything in between there are many federal, state, academic, private, and nonprofit service opportunities for you to consider. My experience has been that professional and personal lives are rarely a straight line forward toward a pre-planned goal, even if it sometimes seems that way for other people. Contact me and let’s talk about your potential, I would be excited and honored to hear your story.

in Guides / Stories  by 31 Aug 2015 1 comments