Miranda Belcher's Story

Hey, speaking of current AmeriCorps members, check out Miranda Belcher's extremely moving story!  She's awesome!



What did your friends and family think about AmeriCorps?

...It wasn't until I actually got here that I felt like people were positive about AmeriCorps.  Because people in Federal Way kind of know about AmeriCorps, and I am of course working with all of you guys who are choosing to do it.  Definitely a more positive experience, definitely really negative when I first decided to do it.

How did you deal with that?

Well, it was hard because I didn't really know what I was doing either!  I had minimal understanding of what I was getting myself into.  so I just tried to make it sound as awesome as possible, about how I was going to be helping people and it was really meaningful work.  I always related it to the Peace Corps because everyone knows what it is and I feel like it's really well-known and respected.  So I'd say, "It's like Peace Corps but I'm helping within the United States, people who need our help here!"

It's almost like people were wondering, "What are you getting out of this?"

more after the jump!


Yeah.  Yeah, I think a lot of people didn't understand why I was doing it. I'm not done with school, I'm not at a place in my life where I should be like, sacrificing anything. So I always try to explain that it was really important for me to do this.  Because I don't know what I want to do with my life. And I feel like it's a really rare opportunity to be in the educational system without a teaching degree and still get that experience without putting in four years of your life to get the degree and not even know if you like it.  

How have you changed?

I think I have a lot more patience.  Like, a lot more patience.  I work at a high school, and I was talking to someone who works at an elementary school.  They were saying, "I love it when you smile at a kid and they like, smile back.  Does that happen at high school?"  And I was like, "You smile at them for two weeks and then they smile back, kind of, after that."  You have to like, really trust that's it's going to work eventually. I think that's the biggest thing that's changed, I'm just a lot more patient.  I don't expect things to happen immediately.  just having faith and trusting that if I keep doing what I'm doing things are going to work out for the better.

Describe someone from this year that you won't forget.

There's one student.  It's so crazy.  I'm in her class once a week, and it's Geometry.  And I'm not even in it once a week, because we have all these weird  schedules and whenever the schedule gets messed up I end up in AVID for that period, because that comes first. So I really don't see her that often. But she's a senior, and she needs to pass her classes to graduate.  First semester I was really impressed with her because she made it happen--she was really  behind.  And of course we came in a little later in the year, and it was a while before we had build that relationship where she was actually willing to show me that she was really behind and needed help and willing to ask questions.  


And so, seeing how she grew last semester was really impressive. But this past semester, it's amazing, she got kicked out of her house, and she moved in with her Grandma up in Seattle. So she has to take a three-hour bus ride to get to school every day, and she can't stay after school anymore because it would be too late to go home. It's amazing, she hasn't given up--she keeps  making it happen.  She comes  to me and says, "Well where are you this period of the day?  This period I have free I can come find you and we can work on this." And she has managed to come after school a couple of times.  And she's going to graduate.   I'm, so  grateful that I could meet her and could help her when there was probably no one else.