Returning LIFT-er Updates and Announcements!
Anisha Sinha
Hey everyone!
I hope you all are enjoying your summer break! As we start gearing up for the fall semester to kick off, I wanted to reach out to you with some summer updates, as well as a brief “returner” application for those of you who are interested in volunteering with us in the fall.
1. We have new staff members here in the West Office! Kelli Bosak is our new Site Coordinator, and Hoa Pham is our new Community Outreach Coordinator. I have included brief bios below, as well as their email addresses- feel free to introduce yourselves and say hello!
Kelli Bosak, West Office Site Coordinator (kbo...@liftcommunities.org) -- Kelli Bosak recently completed a degree from the University of Michigan in Anthropology and French & Francophone Studies. During her four years of undergraduate study, she campaigned on activist causes focusing on the environment and women's issues through outreach into the local and student communities while spending her summers working for the National Park Service in California and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the interpretation of natural and cultural resources to encourage conservation and environmental consciousness among all ages. Also as an undergraduate, Kelli served as a French-English translator and English tutor at a refugee shelter in Detroit, Michigan. Spending a semester studying French and West African studies in Dakar, Senegal created in her a passion for understanding the issues and structural barriers facing urban populations in Senegal and the United States, and she is confident that her years serving with LIFT will help to prepare her to break down some of those barriers and help those in need, both in the United States and abroad, and lead her to a field of graduate study that will help accomplish those goals.
Hoa Pham, Community Outreach Site Coordinator (hp...@liftcommunities.org) -- Hoa Pham recently graduated from Swarthmore College with a degree in Psychology and concentration in Biology. Born into a philanthropic community, Hoa has taken a particular interest in helping others. During her tenure at Swarthmore, she channeled that interest towards public health by working with the Global Health Forum to help spread awareness and combat various global health issues. She quickly learned that biological diseases were deeply routed in social "disease", and further explored the latter connection by working with minorities afflicted by HIV/AIDS in her backyard, Philadelphia. Hoa intends to someday pursue a Masters in Public Health with a concentration in Social Psychology and hopes that her experiences with LIFT will both provide more meaning to that education, as well as prepare her for a career tackling "disease."
2. We are also officially up and running in our NEW OFFICE SPACE! We said goodbye to our beloved 60th Street office this past May, and have been in full swing at our new office located at 56th and Chestnut Street. With 10 workstations, and tons more space, we are super excited to serve even more clients this year. Check out the pictures below to get an idea of what it looks like. (We actually have a real waiting area now!)
3. For those of you who would like to continue volunteering with LIFT this upcoming semester, please fill out the brief returner application attached. Because we like to give our returning volunteers scheduling priority, we ask that you submit your form no later than Wednesday, September 7th, 2011. Basically, the earlier you return this form, the more likely we will be able to accommodate your scheduling preferences! We still ask for volunteers to commit to a 3-hour block of time per week, as well as mandatory biweekly trainings (dates TBD)- if you have extenuating circumstances but would still like to be involved with LIFT, please let me know and we will explore options. You can submit your responses via email or, if you are interested in visiting the new space, drop it off in person at 5548 Chestnut Street! And of course, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask!
4. Tell your friends about LIFT!!! Even if you are unable to volunteer with us, any outreach helps with recruitment, and you all are our best spokespeople! We will be actively recruiting new volunteers towards the end of August and beginning of September, but it is not too early to start now! Keep your eyes peeled for any recruitment opportunities on campus, and if you have friends interested in social justice, or that you think would be great volunteers, you can have them contact me (asi...@liftcommunities.org) for more information.
I hope you guys enjoyed the updates, and I hope to see all of you this upcoming fall. Enjoy this last leg of summer, and try to get your returner forms in as soon as possible! Thanks!
-Anisha
***If you would like to be removed from this listserv, shoot me an email with your name and email address and I’ll get you off the list!***
Anisha Sinha
Site Coordinator/Americorps*National Direct
LIFT-Philadelphia
5548 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19139
Tel: (215) 474-1807
Fax: (215) 474-1584
www.liftcommunities.org/philadelphia