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Who Ampact is a nonprofit organization that runs evidence-based AmeriCorps programs in three focus areas – education, environment, and healthy futures. They operate in 16 states, training more than 3,700 AmeriCorps members and serving more than 50,000 students each...
Gina Quiroz (left) and Ana Arce work as an intergenerational pair to get people housed.
Generations United for Service, a program of the Northern Santa Barbara County United Way, is an age-diverse volunteer network that engages AmeriCorps members to serve homeless families. Lyiam Galo leads Generations United for Service and is chief impact officer at NSBC United Way.
Generations United for Service works to connect homeless families to services and housing. AmeriCorps members and volunteers work shoulder to shoulder, often as intergenerational pairs to canvas the streets, doing a point-in-time count of people on the streets that helps determine how much the county gives in funding. Olders and youngers use their complementary strengths to accomplish the team’s goals.
Putting intergenerational pairs on the street increases the chance of connection.
“There is a concentration of folks living on the streets who are older and male,” Galo says, “but not everyone responds to or builds rapport with someone their own age. Having intergenerational pairs do this work together increases the chance that they’ll connect with an unhoused person.”
Age diversity, like all kinds of diversity, improves program design and delivery.
“Both national service and cogenerational initiatives bridge difference and reduce polarization,” Galo says, “so dovetailing them like this makes effective programming.”
“We want to inspire more programs that work with volunteers and AmeriCorps members to intentionally recruit for age diversity because, just like racial or gender diversity, age diversity helps to eliminate blind spots in the design and delivery of programs,” Galo says. “It’s a stronger and more accessible approach when you eliminate age bias and have members of all ages contributing to the work.”
One thing leads to another. “If we are more effective because of our age diversity,” Galo says, “then we’re going to have a more effective intervention.” And a more equitable one. “When we remove preconceived notions of what age allows us to do,” Galo adds, “we’re gifted with initiatives that are better suited to equitable service provision.”
Galo says he’s been “surprised by how intuitive the concept of cogeneration is for people. As soon as I connect it to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), other nonprofits and high level leaders just understand the benefits immediately. If a diversity of perspective by race and gender create better outcomes, then of course diversity of perspective by age would as well. Age just isn’t talked about as much.”
Cogenerational service opportunities can help AmeriCorps meet its recruitment goals.
“When you open up your recruitment beyond high schools and colleges, you start to look at who in the Kiwanis organization wants to become half-time AmeriCorps members so that they can give their education award to their grandchild,” Galo says. “When you start to think on those terms, then you expand your recruitment pipeline. And you get a more fulfilling service experience from the cogeneration, which helps with member retention, which is part of the recruitment crisis.”
Volunteering, particularly in cogenerational pairs, decreases loneliness.
“We want to increase interest in volunteerism and national service and get people to be less socially isolated, which increased during the pandemic and is contributing to growing polarization,” Galo says. “Finding a way to contribute in-person in your community is the easiest way to reduce loneliness and anxiety and increase a sense of purpose and productivity.”
Volunteering expands economic opportunity for both those served and those serving.
The services the United Way team and its volunteers provide for homeless people lead directly to increased economic opportunity, Galo says. “The people we work with are more likely to pursue a job and retain housing if they are accessing the services that we provide. We’re setting them up for stability, which is required for economic opportunity.”
The experience also benefits the helpers. “Volunteering and participating in national service positions you for all kinds of work,” Galo says. “It’s an on-ramp for full-time employment because you get tangible experience and can demonstrate your value.”
In our program,” Galo continues, “a quarter of our AmeriCorps members get jobs at the service sites. The rest of them are leveraging their experience for other work and educational opportunities. Nearly all of them stay in our county. So that means that we’re creating this wealth knowledge, this new idea about age diversity within our county, and then it stays.”
Eventually, Galo believes that knowledge “butterflies upward and outward to the rest of the country. That’s my vision.”
Ana Arce, 34, is a Millennial who is in her second year of AmeriCorps service. Gina Quiroz, 58, is Gen X and a half-time AmeriCorps member with prior experience living on the streets. Gina has a natural connection with the homeless community because she was just there. The pair worked together, leveraging their complementary knowledge and experience to help people find housing.
Here’s what they had to say in a recent CoGenerate webinar:
“I became an AmeriCorps member because I was experiencing homelessness. I was chronically homeless for six and a half years, and there was an AmeriCorps member that followed me all the way through for about three or four years, until the day that I signed my lease last year. And that connection will be forever because she’s the only one of the service providers that actually followed me all the way through.
“I really enjoy working with Ana. She’s wise beyond her years. And she’s very driven, and that gives me motivation. She holds me accountable, and she’s taught me how to keep my things arranged and things that I had kind of lost sight of because of what I was going through. So she keeps me motivated to keep going. I love Ana.
“My goals and dreams are to open my own nonprofit. [Serving] is a great way for me to network with the community and meet people. Ana has introduced me to a lot of them because she’s been doing this longer. And she’s very supportive of everything I do. And she’ll even help me get there. When we walk into places where people are in need of service…it’s Ana and Gina, you know, and it feels good.”
— Gina Quiroz
“Being paired with Gina has definitely shaped my experience beyond what words can express. We are a really good team, and we are very dedicated to sharing our knowledge with the community. I’ve learned a lot from Gina, and I’m a big believer in the ripple effect. So when you empower one person, you’re empowering a whole community. Her passion and her direct connection and support motivate me to be better and inspire me to show up for the community.”
— Ana Arce
