Our mission is to connect passionate people with transformative community projects to fight poverty.
Our vision is that communities and the individuals who serve them thrive when every person contributes to a sustainable and just existence.
We are an institution that strives to promote equity. We encourage individual positionality and strive to define Our organizational positionality.
What is positionality?
Our identities are critical because they shape our perceptions. They determine our assumptions and our understanding of how others treat us (Bourke 2014). By recognizing our identities and paying attention to our biases, we can work with different groups and recognize their unique circumstances. (Bourke 2014). We would recommend looking at resources from the Anti-racist teaching collective for more materials and further insight.
What is organizational positionality?
Staff, members, partners, and organizational stakeholders each have a unique path. Organizational positionality begins to define the inevitable complexities that exist within interconnected entities like Arizona Serve. It is vital to recognize the collective perspective because by acknowledging our own relative power, privilege, and biases we are able to start to move towards equity literacy and increase our own agency accountability (Madison 2005; Gorski, 2020).
Arizona Serve’s Positionality
We began as a grassroots effort to support communities and AmeriCorps members. Now we are a small Prescott College staff with dominant and nondominant identities that recruit new members of varying social identities, educational backgrounds, and lived experiences. Thus, our positionality changes yearly.
On the positive side, our community continues to grow and foster new ideas. On the negative side, we commonly make assumptions about member needs because we have limited time to recognize individuality. Ultimately, we answer to the agencies that fund and support our mission; thus, we walk a fine line between our members and partners.
There are more drawbacks to our model; National Service is rooted in white saviorism, and we risk imposing outside perspectives without community input. We struggle to accommodate citizenship status, income barriers, and reliance on grant funding. We strive to remain aware of the impact of our position and actively work towards operating a member-driven program that intentionally cultivates equity.
Our values are interlinked and inform our organizational goals that direct our yearly action commitments. This is the mechanism that keeps us accountable to our diverse array of stakeholders.
Our values
We engage with the community through deliberate outreach, partnerships with nonprofits and public agencies, and community-driven initiatives.
We amplify the voices of non-dominant identity groups by confronting inequities with a social justice perspective.
We strengthen our members for future endeavors through professional development, targeted coaching, and professional networking opportunities.
We recognize the imperfections in our work and will always work towards bettering our communities by constant self-reflection, internal evaluation metrics, and open-door policies to our communities
For Program Year 2021-2022, Arizona Serve of Prescott College is committed to:
Training: Civic Leadership Training content will be overhauled beginning in December 2021. All training content will seek to amplify member voices by enhancing and updating sources, including and/or involving members in the team meeting space, and including at least one non-dominant identity in each Guest Speaker Series panel.
Fund Development: Arizona Serve will waive, thanks to the American Rescue Plan (ARP) $40,000, in partner share to at least eight agencies between the regions whose mission is focused on social justice. A champion group will cultivate an application process to be utilized in the upcoming grant year to better identify partners, vet waived partner share, and further incentivize members. $50,000 will be raised by at least 20 external sources (i.e. grants and fundraising). The Tucson Program Coordinator and Executive Director will lead this process.
Engagement: The communications team will internally publish four blogs articles, two podcasts, and one newsletter a month and post to social media every day. Externally they will create 12 press releases, speak on the radio six times, be featured on local news stations twice, and participate in 12 tabling events a year. These tactics will be reviewed quarterly through the communications/marketing plan and will seek to help increase engagement in the community to build partnerships, recruit members, and create a culture of National Service in our region.
Evaluation and Compliance: Arizona Serve will develop a new set of standards to review and revise our data collection metrics and methods to ensure that we can accurately demonstrate the work of our members and the efficacy of our programs by September 2023. Performance measures will be reviewed and data collection processes revised by September 2022.
Recruitment: Staff will create specific Arizona Serve-wide recruitment metrics and enrollment benchmarks for State and VISTA by November 2021. It will include specific percentages to fill by unique dates and looking at adding partnership development into recruitment metrics in the form of a manual.
Staff Involvement: Arizona Serve will create a policy requiring staff to volunteer monthly with current and potential partner sites (for 2-8 hours) to build connections with community organizations by November 2021.
COVID-19 Preparedness: Create a plan for monitoring the COVID situation, regularly reviewing CDC guidelines, updating all staff (and members), and adapting our models to remote work if the situation demands it by November 2021.
Partnership Development: To maximize our impact, both rework our policies for assessing partner sites to ensure that they align with our anti-poverty values (including anti-racism), and rework our policies for dealing with partners that do not uphold their responsibilities to ensure that our members get the most out of Arizona Serve’s projects by the Summer of 2023.
Member Experience: Arizona Serve will overhaul our member experience by fostering connections between members and staff while also developing a process for consistently collecting and analyzing member feedback by Summer 2022. Create a one-stop-shop knowledge bank of tips, tools, and tricks to make sharing information between team leaders more reliable to make the member experience more consistent by Summer 2022.
Equity Literacy: An Advisory Council made up of community stakeholders will support Arizona Serve by January of 2022. The group will examine organizational policies and structures to address the causes of inequality and incorporate the voices of commonly marginalized stakeholders.
Our accessibility statement
History
Our story began in 2006 when several Yavapai County agencies saw a gap in services, so they brought together a small team of AmeriCorps VISTA members to fight poverty in the region. Several members chose to stay after their service year to develop the Yavapai County VISTA Project. In 2009, we became Serve Yavapai and a program of Prescott College, increasing in scope and size to 25 VISTA members. Today, we are a team over 150 strong. We are proud to have one of the largest and top-performing AmeriCorps projects in the state of Arizona. Our staff, all of whom were National Service members themselves, oversees a collaborative team environment that allows us to support communities in the fight against poverty.
For general questions or information, please contact us at AmeriCorps@arizonaserve.org. For members or supervisors who need to self-report a COVID-19 exposure, utilize this link.
Support Us
Consider making a financial contribution to support our AmeriCorps members and general programming.
Staff
Annie Haseley, Executive Director
Annie shifted in to a director role in 2020 and was promoted to Executive Director in September of 2021. She is also a Ph.D. candidate in Sustainability Education at Prescott College with an emphasis on experiential service-learning. She received a Bachelor’s degree at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana and majored in Religious Studies with a focus in Islam. A semester abroad in Kenya with the School of International Training propelled her to join the Peace Corps. She served in Benin, West Africa, where she spent one term teaching English and another serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer Leader. After her time abroad, Annie returned stateside and received a Master’s degree in Nonprofit Management from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. Annie worked in various capacities for the Boys Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee for nearly ten years before turning once again to service, this time AmeriCorps. Annie joined Arizona Serve in 2017 first as an AmeriCorps VISTA Leader and then the Training and Program Manager for the Prescott team. Annie loves to travel far and wide and spend time camping and hiking.
Email: ahaseley@arizonaserve.org
Number: 520-329-7613
Sarah Haber, Director of State Programs
Sarah got her start in National Service in the summer of 2017 when she moved from New York to Arizona to serve as a VISTA for 2 years. Her first VISTA term was for the Chino Valley Area Chamber of Commerce serving as the Community Volunteer Program Coordinator. There, she developed an online database to help to local nonprofits connect with people looking to volunteer. She then extended her service for another year and took on the position of the AmeriCorps VISTA Team Leader for Prescott. Sarah was then hired on full time by Arizona Serve and relocated from Prescott to Tucson.
Email: shaber@arizonaserve.org
Number: (928) 793-8941
Allison Doty, AmeriCorps Program Manager
Allison moved to Tucson in 2016 to study Anthropology at the University of Arizona. During her time in college, she was engaged with non-profits like United Way, Watershed Management Group, and the Tucson City of Gastronomy. She learned about environmental and social justice issues in the Southwest and how various non-profits were combating these problems. She knew she wanted to stay in the area post-graduation and decided to pursue a position in the non-profit sector, eventually landing in the AmeriCorps Program Coordinator position that reflected her desire to get to know the organizations and people working in the non-profit community in Tucson. In her free time, Allison loves discovering new local restaurants and cafes and hiking with her friends.
Email: adoty@arizonaserve.org
Number: (530) 763-2327
Katie Retwaiut, AmeriCorps Training & Program Manager
Katie moved from New Mexico to start her national service journey with Arizona Serve in 2019. First as an AmeriCorps VISTA in Prescott, and then a two-time State member in Tucson. Her parents met while her mother served in Micronesia as a Peace Corps member, so the notion of serving her community has been ingrained in her since birth. Katie’s national service experience propelled her to attend the University of Arizona as a graduate student, getting a Master’s in Public Administration with a focus in Nonprofit Management. In her free time, Katie loves reading, finding new cafes, watching reality dating tv shows, getting to the top of the Duolingo leaderboard, ice skating, and reliving her teenaged fangirl years.
Email: kretwaiut@arizonaserve.org
Number: 520-276-9645
Brandon White, VISTA & Health Corps Program Manager
Brandon is a midwest transplant who grew up in a small town in southern Michigan. He earned a Bachelor's degree from Michigan State University, majoring in kinesiology with a specialization in health promotions. After graduation, Brandon moved to the Washington, DC area where he worked as a physical therapy assistant. In 2019, Brandon decided he wanted to help people on a larger scale and chose to enter national service as an AmeriCorps VISTA member serving in Prescott, AZ. After his year of service, he became the Program Manager for GEM Environmental NFP, where he developed a new AmeriCorps workforce development program for students in the Prescott area. Brandon is excited to be back with Arizona Serve in his new role as Training and Program Manager.
Email: bwhite@arizonaserve.org
Number: (623) 282-2073
Sean Stevens, AmeriCorps Program Coordinator
During the day, Sean enjoys solving problems and supporting efforts that tangibly improve the lives and experiences of his fellow man. He views it as a privilege, rather than a responsibility, to work to meaningfully better the world. He brings to the table his years of coaching and mentoring experience as well as his prior work with the Prescott Unified School District's volunteer teams. Though he got his start in AmeriCorps shortly after graduating from Case Western Reserve University in 2019 with a bachelor's degree in history, he found the experience fulfilling enough to sign up for another year of punishment in the hope of helping others find their own meaningful experiences. After work hours, Sean is a quintessential dork and a loveable rapscallion. When he's not busy roughing it as a rogue, he enjoys listening to Jukebox the Ghost, watching Community, reading Redwall, and getting trounced by skilled fencers.
Email: stevens@arizonaserve.org
Number: (520) 276-1802
Brenda Bratton, Prescott VISTA Team Leader
Brenda is returning to AmeriCorps in Prescott, Arizona as a VISTA Leader, after serving as a VISTA in Tucson, Arizona, from 2017 to 2018 as a Marketing Communications Specialist/Workforce Development Navigator working with Opportunity Youth. She brings with her expertise and experience in journalism, graphic design, media relations, marketing, entertainment, and business. She earned her B.A. in Journalism: Public Relations at California State University, Northridge. She then completed her first master’s degree in Business Management at University of Redlands in California. With a background working in entertainment business units - Marketing/Publicity for Feature Films, Recorded Music in Jazz and Pop and Rock A&R, Studio Operations, International Home Entertainment Elements Production, Product Placement, and Consumer Products - she completed a Master of Science in Public Relations: Management at University of Maryland Global Campus. Her interest in all-things-digital and The Internet of Things led her to complete an OMDE – Master of Distance Education and E-Learning at the University of Maryland Global Campus and to complete two master-level certifications – Learning Design and Technology and Project Management at the same digital campus. Brenda’s most exciting journalism adventure took her to Paris, France, and three cities in Cameroon, Central Africa, as Stevie Wonder’s international journalist on a fact-finding mission for a feature film soundtrack. She enjoys scary movies, theater butter popcorn, all types of music, jewelry, and great food.
Email: bbratton@arizonaserve.org
Number: (323) 282-8281
Laura Haferkamp, Tucson VISTA Team Leader
Laura is a Tucson native and a third-term AmeriCorps member. Her first term was as a VISTA in Flagstaff, where her main role was recreating a database for one of NAU’s teacher support programs. After awhile of odd jobs, she moved back to Tucson for a yearlong AmeriCorps State and National term with Arizona Serve at the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona. She spent most of her time helping out the Volunteer Services team and managing the logistics for representatives to attend local events. Immediately afterwards, she started her term as the Arizona Serve Tucson VISTA Leader in August 2022. In her spare time, she enjoys puzzles, cooking, time in nature, tabletop roleplaying games, B monster movies, and spending time with her four-legged buddies.
Email: lhaferkamp@arizonaserve.org
Number: (520) 428-0573
Kennedy Frost, Tucson AmeriCorps State Team Leader
Kennedy moved to Tucson in 2018 to attend the University of Arizona where she studied Political Science, and French. Throughout her internship experiences with Step-up To Justice Non-Profit, and the Veterans Advocacy Law Clinic, she gained her passion for serving her community. After graduation, Kennedy realized she wasn't ready to tackle law school just yet, and she wanted to continue working in the non-profit sector where she currently serves as the Arizona State Team leader. In her free time, Kennedy enjoys reading, driving 60 minutes to visit the Thing roadside attraction, and losing at Borderlands Trivia.
Email: kfrost@arizonaserve.org
Number: (520) 222-9067