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 AmeriCorps

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In fall 2019, TYM4Change partnered with the Community Action Partnership of Kern (CAPK) to write a grant to bring more AmeriCorps members to Kern County. The Kern Youth Making Change project involves 24 full time AmeriCorps members, nine of whom are attached to TYM4Change. 

TYM4Change youth and AmeriCorps members have partnered to take on projects to help strengthen, support and inform our community. COVID-19 has intensified our work in two major areas: documenting and working to resolve food insecurity in Kern County, and supporting the Vineland School District, which serves a very impoverished area south of Bakersfield, in Weedpatch.  

During the early days of the COVID shutdown, between April and June 2020, AmeriCorps members surveyed community residents waiting in food distribution lines in Bakersfield, Lamont, Shafter, Delano, the Kern River Valley, Tehachapi, and Ridgecrest. Survey items focused on changes in income, stress, and residents’ level of reliance on the food bank. Members are also conducting film interviews with people who receive food and people who distribute it, in hopes of better understanding how the system of food distribution can be improved, and how people can be better supported in meeting their food-related needs. Expect a mini-documentary on this topic by early next year!

AmeriCorps members and TYM4Change youth are also partnering with the Vineland School District to address food insecurity, provide online enrichment classes to students after school, and renovate a house on the Vineland School campus to serve as a family resource center. AmeriCorps members are working to ensure that TYM4Change will have the capacity to continue these projects after their year of service is over, in December. 

AmeriCorps and TYM4Change in the initial planning stage of the Enrichment Project for Sunset School.
AmeriCorps and TYM4Change in the initial planning stage of the Enrichment Project for Sunset School.
AmeriCorps members assisting at the Sunset School Backpack Drive.
AmeriCorps members assisting at the Sunset School Backpack Drive.
AmeriCorps members help out in the food distribution lines in Shafter.
AmeriCorps members help out in the food distribution lines in Shafter.
AmeriCorps members help pack commodities at the CAPK food warehouse in the early days of the COVID-19 shutdown.
AmeriCorps members help pack commodities at the CAPK food warehouse in the early days of the COVID-19 shutdown.
AmeriCorps members take surveys to compile data in regards to food insecurity in Kern County.
AmeriCorps members take surveys to compile data in regards to food insecurity in Kern County.
Some of our Americorps members are shown working to renovate the Little House at Vineland School.Once it is remodeled, the Little House will be converted into a Parent Resource Center.
Some of our Americorps members are shown working to renovate the Little House at Vineland School.Once it is remodeled, the Little House will be converted into a Parent Resource Center.