Welcome Post

Hello Everyone,

Let me first introduce myself. My name is Kaleena Marquez. I am currently part of the Public Allies 2011-2012 Chicago class. The organization I am partnered with is Chicago Public Schools where I am working in their Virtual Learning Program department. The intention of this blog is purely for professional development and reflection. These next ten months are going to be a big growing/learning experience for me as I do a lot of soul searching and leadership development.

Public Allies is a part of one of the many AmeriCorp programs offered throughout the United States. Their focus is to train youth by developing their leadership and service skills. All the organizations that Public Allies classmates work with are Not-For-Profit. The program is a 10 month committment that requires 1700 service hours. These hours are accumulated primarily at your placement with your Partner Organization. The rest of your hours happen through fundraising (no more than 10% and not required), Friday trainings/retreats (also no more than 10%), service days, and your Team Service Project (aka TSP.) Public Allies does have programs in many other cities throughout the US (including San Francisco, Milwaukee, Washington, DC., and Miami)

There are three required service days and three required retreats throughout the year (beginning, middle, and end of the year.) The Team Service Project is where you are set up with a subgroup of allies. The project is ongoing and is the second/third largest portion of your service over the 10 months (first largest is being at your placement.) Each TSP group is assigned either a community or organization to work with. They then build an assets and needs map to determine what type of program to start up for said location. It starts with contracts, plan outline, and other documents and then ends with implementation of the project along with a final report. This part of the ally experience can be the most difficult yet the most rewarding. Past allies have reported the most growth happening from their TSPs. The PA year also requires presentations for your TSP, POL (about all you learned from the year,) and ally led trainings. Along with all of this, you also have contact with a program manager who helps you on your personal journey throughout the year. You set goals and strive to accomplish them.

PA Chicago does give ally participants a $1600/month stipend and should you successfully finish your ally experience a $5550 education award to put toward loans or further education. Many who have participated in the program have gone on to do wonderful things within their communities. There is a large network within Public Allies that provides support. It is truly a large family of individuals.

Training began for the Public Allies program on September 1st. It consisted of understanding the ins and outs of what PA entails and also featured our first retreat. The next big events coming up are our first service day on October 22nd and opening day in Springfield on October 13th. As you can tell from all of this, the Public Allies experience is a very intense one. One must be highly committed to achieve, work hard on their time management skills, and really make sure you take good care of yourself over the year. An ally can easily serve 50-60 or more hours a week once the TSP really gets rolling. It is not recommended that you work another job during the experience.

Next Post topic: Public Allies-First month insights.