Jumpstart remembers, creates

About 90 Pitt students sat with their eyes closed and heads bowed in honor of Carma Reed… About 90 Pitt students sat with their eyes closed and heads bowed in honor of Carma Reed on Monday afternoon.

Reed, an AmeriCorps member and Duquesne University student, was killed last week in a drive-by shooting for no apparent reason.

Although the students honoring Reed with a moment of silence had never met her, they shared a common bond in that they were involved in AmeriCorps, a domestic form of the Peace Corps that advocates community service within America.

The Pitt students were members of Jumpstart, an AmeriCorps organization that matches college students with low-income pre-school children. The college students meet with their children twice a week during the school semester to tutor them one-on-one as well as involve the children in creative activities.

Jumpstart members, as well as members of the honor fraternity, Phi Sigma Pi, took Martin Luther King Jr. Day to honor and reflect upon not just King himself, but all those involved in community service.

The Jumpstart members devoted four hours to constructing family activity packets for the children they serve. The activity packets are meant to “engage families as the teachers they are,” said Angie Gordon, the program director of Jumpstart Pittsburgh.

The family packet can help parents get involved with building a “foundation” in their children’s lives, said Jumpstart member Jocelyn Vanstory. “Once you have that foundation, you can do anything.”

After making the packets, the Jumpstart members, most of whom were wearing blue Jumpstart T-shirts, sat at 10 tables throughout the Kurtzman Room in the William Pitt Union to take part in a program of reflection.

Sarah John, a special education coordinator for the Pennsylvania Service-Learning Alliance, started the program by reading part of a King speech that was originally given to middle school students in Philadelphia.

“What is your life’s blueprint?” the speech began. Just as an architect needs a blueprint for a building, so too does a child need a blueprint for their lives, John quoted King as saying.

The blueprint of life must be made up of both a “deep belief in your own dignity, your own worth” and a striving for excellence, King said in his speech.

“Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead and the unborn couldn’t have done it better,” King said.

It makes no difference if a person is a street sweeper or a poet, King said. All people in all occupations must take pride in what they do and do it the best they can, he said.

“How do you feel Jumpstart is strengthening your blueprint?” John asked her audience.

Kristopher Branson raised his hand. “It’s helped me to become a better person,” he said. “Not that I was a bad person before,” he added, causing his fellow Jumpstart members to laugh.

Then John asked the members if they had done the best they possibly could today, whether they were in charge of stapling papers or cutting tissue.

Sandi Pino mentioned how everyone worked together to do they best they could as a group. She remembered thinking to herself when she first walked into the room, “Oh my God, it looks like a factory in here.”

And everyone was smiling, she said, because they were truly happy to be working to do something for the children they love.

Jumpstart members also took part in an activity in which they labeled the ABCs of Service. The students at each table composed a list of what community service meant to them, using all the letters of the alphabet. The groups then voted on the best ones to put on a list in front of the room.

K was for King – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – and P was for Pride in one’s work, showing that the members took something away from the speech that was read to them.