The 16th Annual Northwest National Service Symposium took place May 19-20, 2011 at Portland State University. It consisted of a juried competition, in which AmeriCorps and VISTA members from Oregon and Washington submitted creative projects inspired by their service experiences. At the event, members from the two states gathered to share their projects through breakout sessions and workshops, performance showcases, and an Art Gallery.

This blog includes many of the projects submitted to this year’s Symposium, published by permission of the artists. They are classified as Literary, Performing, Video, or Visual Arts. Winners of Jury’s Choice honors and Finalists are also included.

You can view photos of many of the Visual Arts submissions on Picasa here.

The creators of these projects granted the Symposium permission to post them online. If you find omissions or errors on the blog, please email nationalservicesymposium@gmail.com

The Northwest National Service Symposium is supported by the Washington Commission on National and Community Service, Oregon Volunteers, and the Oregon and Washington state CNCS offices.

Ayla Olson & Lyndsey Tucker, “Life’s Most Persistent and Urgent Question” Video 

Carrie Thompson, Charlotte Thompson, Sally Paulson, “AmeriHeart” Video

Catherine Mehta, “I Found Them in the Music…” Video 

Jessica Johnson, “Allies in Action: Uniting Girls to Create Change” Video

Liz Reich & Mary Flanigan, “Stigmabusters 2: Stigmas Get Sexy” Video

MidiAna Bilik-Franklin (Washington VISTA) - “The Sweet Side of Service” Video – JURY’S CHOICE

Rebecca de Greyt (Oregon VISTA) - “’U'CAN Make a Difference” Video – JURY’S CHOICE 

Sandra Lampe-Martin (AmeriCorps Alum) - “Read for the Future” Video 

Sharon Gavin, “Year After Year” song 

Trevor Klicker & Emily James, “Hand Me Down” Song

Alexandra Scanlon, “Breaking Free” Visual

Aliina Lahti, “Nature Is” Visual

Anastaisha Yehle & Emily Nelson, “Tuesday” Visual

Ann Van Dielen, “May: Mental Health Awareness Month” Visual

Antonina Shapovalova and Amanda Ellis (Washington AmeriCorps) – “Can’t Fit Everything into a Suitcase” Visual - JURY’S CHOICE

Brianna Dutton, “I Love Girl Scout: Self Reflections by my Girl Scouts” Visual

Britt Haak, “Dream” Visual

Catherine Mehta, “Mexican Spring in Portland” Visual

Deanna Dunkin-Smith & Annie Mulligan, “Once Upon a Time There Was a VISTA…” Visual

Debra Nava, “Great and Small” Visual 

Denny McDonald, “VetSource.org” Visual 

Elizabeth O’Brien, “AmeriCow: Mascot for the Future” Visual 

Gary Gray, “Vet Works Employment Program” Visual

Jessica Gisko, “De-Standardizing Art” Visual

Jessica Lewis (Washington AmeriCorps) – “We Built This House” Visual - JURY’S CHOICE

Kyrsten Sorensen, “Together We “CAN” Feed Our Neighbors!” Visual

Lisa Limongan, “Roots, Intermingled” Visual

Mark Reppi, “Woods” Visual

Megan Ackerman, “Symbols” Visual

Michelle Armstrong, “Growth” Visual

Peggy Somers, “Broken to Beautiful” Visual 

Pete Mai, “A Work Day as an AmeriCorps Member” Visual

Rachel Crump & Sasha Brown “Stories of Acceptance” Visual 

Sandra Lampe-Martin, “Bridges – Build ‘em or Burn ‘em” Visual 

Sarah Hollingworth (Oregon AmeriCorps) – “The Constant Struggle” Visual - JURY’S CHOICE

Tamora Haulk, “A Year in the Life of One AmeriCorps Worker” Visual

Tina Stannert, “I’d Walk A Mile” Visual

Tyler Grant, “Cave Paintings” Visual

Catherine Mehta, “Youth Tides” Poetry

Christine Bedenis, “Elemeno is What I Call the Place in My Heart” Story

Dan Perez (Washington AmeriCorps) - “Looking after a First Grader at the Computer Lab” Poetry - JURY’S CHOICE

Erin Lunde, “What Are Those People Doing in Our Community?” Poetry

Hana Sant, “The Small Joys” Story

Isabel Van Dyke (Oregon AmeriCorps) - “Wait, How is that Service?” Service Story - JURY’S CHOICE

James Millikan (Washington AmeriCorps) - “Driven to SERVE(S)” Poetry

James Millikan (Washington AmeriCorps) - “Poder es Servir” Poetry - JURY’S CHOICE

Jamey Davidsmeyer (Oregon VISTA) - “That View from the Top of a Mountain” Fiction - JURY’S CHOICE

Jenna Fisher, “The Gap/La Brecha” Poetry 

Jennifer Schmidt, “Apathy or Empathy” Poetry

Jennifer Schmidt, “The Porch” Fiction

Kate Forand, “Rural In This Together” Story

Mahershal Freeman, “Hopeless” Poetry

Nick Sabolik - “Views of Resilience” Service Story – JURY’S CHOICE

Nicole Theberge, “Learning Through Conflict” Story

Rebecca de Greyt, “Service” Story

Richard Barry, “How to Win Friends and Influence People on the Rez” Story

Samantha Tilton, “Reflecting” Story

Sandra Lampe-Martin, “Brayden’s Song” Poem

Sandra Lampe-Martin, “Days of Delight” Poem

Sandra Lampe-Martin, “What’s in a Name?” Fiction

Tamora Haulk, “A Year in the Life of One AmeriCorps Worker” Story

Timothy Bell (Washington AmeriCorps) - “What Are My Students Thinking, Learning, Feeling, Doing?” Fiction - JURY’S CHOICE

Drum roll please…

We would like the introduce the 2011 Jury’s Choice recipients in the Performing, Visual, and Literary Arts categories!  We had over 130 awesome submissions this year, and we congratulate these 14 individuals on crafting such outstanding poems, videos, artwork, and stories.

2011 JURY’S CHOICE

Dan Perez (Washington AmeriCorps) - “Looking after a First Grader at the Computer Lab” Poetry

Isabel Van Dyke (Oregon AmeriCorps) - “Wait, How is that Service?” Service Story

James Millikan (Washington AmeriCorps) - “Poder es Servir” Poetry

Jamey Davidsmeyer (Oregon VISTA) - “That View from the Top of a Mountain” Fiction

MidiAna Bilik-Franklin (Washington VISTA) - “The Sweet Side of Service” Video

Nick Sabolik (Washington AmeriCorps) - “Views of Resilience” Service Story

Rebecca de Greyt (Oregon VISTA) - “’U'CAN Make a Difference” Video

Stuart Kramer (Oregon AmeriCorps) - “My Mind Wakes in the Little Valley” Poetry

Timothy Bell (Washington AmeriCorps) - “What Are My Students Thinking, Learning, Feeling, Doing?” Fiction

Tina Duffey (Washington AmeriCorps) – “A Prayer for the Future” Visual

Sarah Hollingworth (Oregon AmeriCorps) – “The Constant Struggle” Visual

Jessica Lewis (Washington AmeriCorps) – “We Built This House” Visual

Antonina Shapovalova and Amanda Ellis (Washington AmeriCorps) – “Can’t Fit Everything into a Suitcase” Visual

2011 FINALISTS (Honorable Mention)

Jennifer Schmidt, “The Porch” Fiction

Sandra Lampe-Martin, “What’s in a Name?” Fiction

Amanda Park, “The Interested Path”;

Hana Sant, “The Small Joys” Story

Joshua McGuire, “Merry Christmas to Your Nose” Story

Richard Barry, “How to Win Friends and Influence People on the Rez” Story

Erin Lunde, “What Are Those People Doing in Our Community?” Poetry

Jenna Fisher, “The Gap/La Brecha” Poetry

Kristine Rouska, “Beginnings”;

Carrie Thompson, Charlotte Thompson, Sally Paulson, “AmeriHeart” Video

Jessica Johnson, “Allies in Action: Uniting Girls to Create Change” Video

Sharon Gavin, “Year After Year” song

Trevor Klicker & Emily James, “Hand Me Down” Song

Alexandra Scanlon, “Breaking Free” Visual

Rachel Crump & Sasha Brown “Stories of Acceptance” Visual

David Gifford, “Issaquah Highlands 2011″;

Mark Reppi, “Woods” Visual   

How did we determine these as the most exemplary projects?  Here is the list of professional judges who reviewed all the Finalists in each category to bring out the best:

DAVID BIESPIEL is an American poet and founder of the Attic Institute. He is the author of The Book of Men and Women, Wild Civility, Pilgrims & Beggars, and Shattering Air, as well as an essential book on creativity, Every Writer Has a Thousand Faces. He has been a contributor to The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, and Slate, in addition to many literary periodicals such as Poetry magazine, Sewanee Review, Parnassus, and Literary Imagination. His column on poetry in The Oregonian is the longest-running column on poetry in an American newspaper. Among his honors are a National Endowment for the Arts Award in Literature, a Lannan Fellowship, and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry. In 2010, he was appointed to the board of the National Book Critics Circle.

KATE BALDUS is the Director of the VISTA Project at Bank Street College of Education in New York. She has an MA in English and an MFA in Creative Writing. She has taught writing in community colleges, universities and prison education programs.

ANNE DIMOCK is an author, librettist and playwright.  Her plays and an opera have been produced in Minnesota and Hawaii.  Her nonfiction book, Humble Pie, Musings on What Lies Beneath the Crust, was a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award.  She has garnered awards, fellowships and residencies for her other nonfiction writing.

MICHELE GLAZER is a writer whose books include On Tact, & the Made Up World, and Aggregate of Disturbances, both from the University of Iowa Press. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Regional Arts & Culture Council, and Literary Arts. Glazer directs and teaches in the MFA Creative Writing program at Portland State University.

APRIL HENRY is a New York Times-bestselling author of 11 mysteries and thrillers for adults and teens, including Girl, Stolen and Learning to Fly.

JEANNE LOHMANN has published nine books of poetry and two volumes of prose; her new poetry collection, AS IF WORDS, is scheduled for publication in Spring, 2012. She is eighty eight years old, and continues to be active in the Olympia, Washington poetry community as a writer, reader, and mentor, with so much still to learn about how to do it better!

G. XAVIER ROBILLARD performs comedy around the country and has written for outlets such as NPR, Comedy Central and McSweeney’s. His novel Captain Freedom was a semi-finalist for the 2010 Thurber Prize for American Humor.

REBECCA SHINE is the co-founder of Graham Street Productions which produces documentary films. She is the producer of Papers: Stories of Undocumented Youth which has screened in all 50 states and at the U.S. Capitol this past year. Her passion for literature, social justice and the art of story-telling drew her to documentary film production.

KELLY SIEVERS is a Portland writer and a member of the poetry writing group, The Black Boughs. Her work has been published in many literary journals and in nine anthologies. She is a contributing reviewer for The Permanente Journal’s Soul of the Healer.

MARY SZYBIST received her BA from the University of Virginia and her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.  Her first collection of poems, Granted, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and her second collection, Incarnadine, is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2013.  Szybist has received fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Witter Bynner Foundation, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Great Lakes Colleges Association, and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center.  Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Virginia Quarterly Review, Poetry, Tin House, The Iowa Review, The Kenyon Review, and other journals.  She lives in Portland, Oregon where she teaches at Lewis & Clark College.

TAMARA WALLACE is founder of Living Stages a theatre company that offers training, facilitation, and performance in interactive theatre for community empowerment. She has travelled to Brazil to do Theatre of the Oppressed in the Landless Workers’ Movement, and she has created theatre with local communities including homeless youth, day laborers, and farm workers. www.teatrocambio.org

KENDL WINTER is a musician and songwriter who lives in Olympia, WA.  She has a solo project on K Records, and also performs with The Pasties, The Blackberry Bushes Stringband, and Southern Skies.  www.myspace.com/winterkendl

Want to share your project and service experience with your peers?

And maybe you’d like a discounted registration?

We can grant these three wishes right now!  How?  We’ve extended the deadline to register to attend the Symposium, individually and as program teams, until close of business on Monday, May 9!  So talk with your Program Supervisor and your teammates, and register online.

And if you present a session at the Symposium, where you can share your skills and stories, you get a $10 discount off of the $49 registration fee!  Presenting is a great opportunity to get creative, teach a class on poetry, photography, or videography, or simply tell a bit about your service year and start some interesting discussions among your peers.  You can now sign up online until the end of the day on Friday, May 6, and don’t forget to contact Avery this week if you have any ideas or questions.

We’re looking forward to featuring your voices at this forum for volunteer-artists, so please let us know if you’re coming!

“The best way to prepare for a presentation is practice, practice, practice! Yes, it is common sense to practice before your presentation, but you’d be amazed how many people a) don’t practice at all or b) practice inefficiently.

1) Practice your content, but don’t memorize it. Folks who memorize their presentations often end up sounding phony and overly rehearsed. Moreover, memorizers are completely thrown by the tiniest mistakes and struggle to recover. Instead, practice for familiarity. Practice having a conversation about your topic, using a detailed outline that highlights the key points and flow of your presentation. This will allow your presentation to feel fresh and you will be focused on the message instead of boring your audience by reciting a script.

2) Practice with people. Give your presentation to your friends and family to make sure you that you are being relevant, interesting and engaging. Ask them what parts of your talk were most interesting and why. Ask them what information would help them understand your topic better and how they feel about the topic. Ask them what would make the presentation more interesting and engaging. Ask what parts of your presentation were least interesting. And, most importantly, incorporate this feedback into your presentation. Being an effective speaker means you adapt to your audience, not the other way around.

3) Practice for style. I’ve seen it a million times: nervous speakers pacing back and forth looking at the floor as they mouth the words to their presentations. They think they are practicing. They are wrong. People will listen to your words, but first they have to believe in you as a speaker; they have to think you are credible. Much of establishing your credibility comes from your nonverbal communication and presentation style. Focusing on style can best be accomplished by practicing your presentation in front of a mirror while doing the following:

• Look at yourself in the mirror as you talk through (notice I didn’t say memorize) your topic so that you are comfortable making eye contact with something other than your notes and encourage you to make eye contact with your audience when the time comes. Looking at yourself will also allow you to become mindful of the nonverbal behaviors that could detract from your presentation.

• Clear your hands and eliminate your fidget potential. Pens, pencils, pointers, papers or other playthings will distract your audience from what you are saying. This also goes for playing with things in your pockets, fidgeting with your hair or jewelry or wringing your hands. Practice placing your hands at your sides, relaxing your hands and use natural gestures that enhance your presentation.

• Record yourself if possible. Even an audio recording is useful, as you will be able to check your tone, pace and enunciation. Your tone needs to be in-line with your topic (you don’t want to sound inappropriately happy or upset). If you find yourself talking too quickly, imagine yourself pausing for one second (count out “one Mississippi” in your head) at each punctuation mark in your presentation. If you find yourself mumbling or tripping over words, try this speaker’s trick: find a cork from a wine bottle and place it, standing on end, between your back teeth. Practice your presentation while biting down on the cork. This will be difficult, but will help open up your jaw muscles and will improve your enunciation.

• Time yourself. If you go over time, you should cut some of your presentation so that you aren’t rushed or going over the time allotted to you. If you are considerably under time, consider adding some more details to your presentation. Remember that most speakers who are nervous increase their speed as they speak, so you need to account for this in your timing.

Finally, the best public speakers practice multiple times. Each time you practice, you will become more comfortable with your topic and with being a presenter. Five full practices (minimally) in front of the mirror will calm your nerves, improve your credibility, and make you sound like an old pro at presenting.”

You know you want to attend. But, did you know that you can also present a session at the event for your peers?

This can look like a roundtable discussion, a how-to-sculpt-your-reflection-in-clay session, or a more traditional stand-up presentation on your project and year in service (Note: we do discourage bland reading-your-powerpoint-slides sessions; ask us why).

We have more info on possible session formats up on the website to get your brainstorming started.  This is a great way to get creative about how you can invite participants  to engage with your experience, your story, and your talents!

Can more than one person present a session?  Yes!

Do presenters get a discounted registration?  Also yes! (up to three people)

Is this often one of the most rewarding and engaging highlights of the Symposium, for presenters and participants alike?  Definitely.

Click here to get more guidelines about presenting, and sign up once you have your idea fleshed out! And remember, we’re here to help you come up with ideas, think about your session format, and help you translate your experience into engaging your audience.

The deadline to sign up to present is Monday, May 2, so get your thinking caps on, and don’t hesitate to call Avery at 503-275-0652 or email him at avery.welkin@educationnorthwest.org with any ideas or questions. Stay tuned for more tips and ideas!

To encourage VISTA and Senior Corps participation in the NW National Service Symposium, the deadline for project submissions has been extended to Monday, April 4th at 8:30am for VISTAs, VISTA first-year Alums, and Senior Corps from Oregon and Washington. Get your creative caps on, and if you had a poem, story, picture, or video that you just didn’t quite get in by March 31st, here’s your chance to shine.

Here’s the link to Submit Now:

https://sites.google.com/site/americorpssymposium/home/submit-now

Don’t forget to email your project, or a photo of it for Visual Arts submissions, to nationalservicesymposium@gmail.com by Monday the 4th!

Any questions? Contact Avery at avery.welkin@educationnorthwest.org or by phone at 503-275-0652.

It could be as simple as taking a photo…  and remembering that whatever you submit, you want to make sure your artist’s bio and statement are included with your submission form.

A few FAQ:

Can you submit multiple projects?  Yes.

Can you submit projects created by a group of people, including non-AmeriCorps participants?  Absolutely.

Do you need to have your mailed physical project submission (or a photo/video for Visual/Performances) received in Avery’s door at Education Northwest by 5:00pm on March 31st?  Also yes.

If you have any questions, or have an idea but want to make sure you can pull it off, please feel free to email or call up Avery at 503-275-0652 or avery.welkin@educationnorthwest.org

The projects are looking great so far, and I look forward to seeing all of your creativity in service unleashed on paper, performance, and pixels!