Collaboration Plus Innovation Equals Success

Today’s guest blogger is Emmanuel Paul Sterling, Regional Recruitment Manager for City Year. Emmanuel has worked closely with SUNY-New Paltz to recruit exceptional young people to serve with City Year. 

The partnership between City Year and SUNY-New Paltz has been nothing short of a success since building the foundation! Each semester, I have the opportunity to visit the campus, build strategies around the coming semester with the career services office, and meet some of the most amazing students.

While registering the first round of incoming City Year New York corps on Friday, July 13, 2012, I had the pleasure of meeting so many young idealists who will work in NYC neighborhoods this year. There were three young ladies in particular whose stories sounded familiar.  New York natives Pamela Vivanco, Stephanie Peralto, and Tina Cherny paths to City Year all began at SUNY-New Paltz where they’d met someone or read something from their career center about changing the lives of inner-city youth.

Pamela Vivanco, Stephanie Peralto, and Tina Cherny. Three of City Year New York’s incoming corps members.

These young women all spoke about wanting to have an impact working with students and taking advantage of this opportunity with City Year, and also mentioned why they felt destined for success. Stephanie and Pam studied Sociology with a concentration in Human Services and Tina tutored a freshmen composition course. They spoke highly of the required field work and conversations led by their peers and advisors at New Paltz that gave them insight about where their passions lay.

I cannot thank the staff in the SUNY New Paltz career center enough for continuing to work with me to strengthen our partnership and send some of their best students to City Year. This year we’ve seen over a 100% growth in application numbers and 450% growth in students accepted to serve across the country. Earlier in the year, I went to Erica Wagner from the Career Services Office and her Director Tonda Highley about hosting events that would give me access to their students from Educational Opportunity Programs (EOP), Honors Programs, and Student Government. I created this target list because many of the students applying to City Year from New Paltz were from these cohorts. The Career Office introduced me to key staff members and allowed me to host their colleagues for City Year presentations.

Diones Adorno, City Year New York Team Leader.

Because of New Paltz’s willingness to grow their application number and diversify their pool, I am excited to have welcomed Diones Adorno to City Year New York. Diones will serve in the Team Leader role leading a group of his peers through their year of service. I met Diones during an event at New Paltz where he shared how he would benefit from coming back to NYC to work for City Year and what he was looking to gain from a year of service. New Paltz’s career center has gone above and beyond to prepare their students for opportunities after New Paltz with City Year. I am looking forward to continuing our partnership and building upon our successes.

Join Us At Our Open House

WHAT: Come learn more about City Year, network with other young people who want to make a difference, complete an application and begin your journey to changing the world. Friends and family are welcome, too!

WHEN: Tuesday, November 1, 2011 at 6:30 PM

WHERE: At the City Year New York office
20 West 22nd Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10010

Take the 1, F, V, N, or R trains to 23rd St.

QUESTIONS? Click HERE if you are interested in attending an open house or would like more information.

Staff Spotlight: Nick Martin

This post was originally posted on the A Slice of Life blog and is written by Nick Martin, Recruitment Manager at City Year New York. A Slice of Life is the Official Blog of Syracuse University Career Services and is a way for the university to communicate with SU students and alumni.

My wardrobe mostly consists of Orange t-shirts, not necessarily my favorite color, but an indicator of my Syracuse pride.  At Syracuse University I majored in International Relations, International Security and Diplomacy, with a geographic concentration in the Middle East and a minor in Communications and Rhetorical Studies.  Obviously, I chose my major based on the length of its name.  Joking aside, my addiction to current events and news grew exponentially throughout my college career.  In selecting the major that I did, I made the decision to not turn a blind eye to the many pressing issues we see in our global community every day.

First steps after college…

I finished my degree in International Relations and merged my personal passion for volunteerism into a pursuit of a humanitarian career path.  I committed to a year of service as an AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteer in Service to America) with the American Red Cross of Massachusetts Bay in Disaster Services.  I worked to improve emergency preparedness efforts and relations in 145 communities through the execution of a strong liaison program with government, volunteer community, and non-profit partners.  I was responsible for leading a team of Red Cross responders in over 26 local disaster scenes, assisting more than 150 individuals with disaster relief services.

The experience stretched me out of my comfort zone, humbled me beyond belief, taught me how to utilize my untamed passion for impactful good and showed me the path I wanted to follow when my year was up and beyond.

Turning My Passion into a Career

My year of service ended in Boston on a Friday and I started at City Year the following Monday in New York City.  I now proudly serve as an Admissions Manager at City Year for a regional team based out of New York.  Every 26 seconds, a student gives up on school in America; we can’t ignore this crisis.  High school dropouts are three times more likely to be unemployed and eight times more likely to be in jail or prison.  I’m propelled by this challenge and more importantly the successes of our efforts.

City Year is a national organization that partners with schools to improve the chances that students will graduate from high school.  We focus on neighborhoods where 50% of the students are at risk for dropping out and have strong evidence our programs are working.  As the Admission Manager I recruit, interview, and hire idealist, 17 to 24 year olds, to give a year of their lives to serve full-time in some of America’s most under-served schools.  We provide critical services like tutoring and after-school programs, giving students the role models they need and making the schools more engaging places to learn.

I share in the City Year founding vision that one day every student will turn to his/her peer and ask the common question, “Where are you doing your year of service?”  I applied to City Year because so many of the ominous issues we see in our global community can be directly tied to education.  I encourage you to answer the call to service and put more Orange in our Red Bombers.

2011 – 2012 Edition of the Incoming Corps FAQ

With corps member registration heating up we have been hearing several of the same questions from our incoming corps members. In an effort to “keep the troops informed” (that’s from a PITW – you will learn what that means when you get here!) and introduce you to some of our staff and senior corps members we put together this short video. Enjoy!