Christina Buckley/The Hoya
NOT YOUR AVERAGE AFTER-SCHOOL JOB: Since 2002, the D.C. branch of the National Student Partnership has grown from its humble beginnings in a Georgetown dorm room to the current 40-person staff.
One of the clients of National Student Partnerships wanted to start a nonprofit organization of her own. This particular client collaborated with Katie O’Hare (COL ’10), the student volunteer she was working one on one with, to write letters and tried to secure funds in order to start an organization to help children that were involved in gangs. She was hoping for a job that fulfilled her and that gave her a chance to give back to her community.
“It’s not just service, it’s working together,” said O’Hare.
This statement could be the unofficial motto of National Student Partnerships, which brings volunteers and low-income clients together to help themselves and the D.C. community.
NSP was founded in 1988 by Kirsten Lodal and Brian Kreiter, Yale undergraduates who recognized a large class divide between their prestigious university and the surrounding area. Today, with 12 full-time offices located in 11 cities nationwide, including Washington, D.C., their plan to engage college students in their communities has been realized.
Two Georgetown students, Elena Boyd (COL ’02) and Sarita Daftary (COL ’03) started the D.C. branch in 1999. While it was originally a homegrown effort operating out of dorm common areas, the offices were moved to their current location, the Perry School Community Center, in the summer of 2002.
NSP is first and foremost a “community resource center” says Lauren Libera (COL ’07), the current site coordinator. Libera works with AmeriCorps and is one of the two full-time staff positions. The office is staffed by 40 volunteers, the majority of whom are current students enrolled at Georgetown, The George Washington University and Howard University. The D.C. branch of NSP aims to give the homeless and low-income residents of Washington the resources needed to help them become self-sufficient. Through one-on-one meetings, the student volunteers help residents navigate D.C.’s social services network and find employment opportunities, child care and housing.
In program year 2008 (Sept. 1, 2007 to Aug. 31, 2008), the most recent time frame the organization has statistics for, NSP helped a total of 900 clients with the variety of services NSP offers, including enabling six people to find housing and 39 clients to secure a job.
The student volunteers typically work four to 15 hours per week. After an initial training process, most of that time is spent working one on one with clients. Most volunteers start taking clients after three weeks of training.
“NSP doesn’t serve people in the sense of unemployed to finding a job or homeless to finding a home,” said Libera. NSP also focuses on the smaller steps necessary in helping their clients achieve broader goals.
After hearing friends rave about the organization, Bridget Copes (COL ’09) decided to get involved. “I had worked with CSJ before and done lots of non-direct service — facilitating and stuff like that,” she said. “I wanted face time with the people I was helping.”
“I felt like I hadn’t done enough to be involved in the D.C community,” added David Dawson (SFS ’10), the current NSP campus representative for Georgetown.
This semester Dawson has been working to help clients understand and file their taxes, one of NSP’s most requested services. He works with the clients to determine if they qualify for earned-income tax credit, which is available to those who make under $10,000 to $15,000 a year. In the last program year, NSP helped 70 clients receive a total of $47,000 in tax refunds.
Dawson said that it is rewarding for him to tell his clients how much money they are getting back from the federal government.
“It was a very exciting moment,” Dawson said, when he told one client that he was receiving a $7,000 to $8,000 refund. He accomplished this after only 12 hours of training and now said he thinks, “If I can do it, anybody can.”
Much of what NSP does is provide access to resources their clients do not otherwise have, even something as seemingly simple as a computer and the Internet.
“One day I walked all around M Street and only a couple of places had paper [job] applications,” said Copes, referring to many businesses’ reliance on the Internet.
These smaller steps, such as help with formatting résumés or faxing a cover letter are often big helps to NSP’s clients.
“They come in not for help, but to work with someone on something that is [their] goal,” said Copes. “We walk alongside them, not do it for them. It’s rewarding because it’s not just charity.”
“As students we’re more optimistic, a bright face in a hard time,” added Dawson. “We look at things like bureaucratic problems as something we can get through.”
The personal aspect of NSP is an important part of volunteering for many of the students, as working individually with clients helps break stereotypes and further understanding.
“There was a client I worked with every week, trying to find a new job. Soon, whenever we were in the office at the same time, we would stop and talk for 15 minutes,” explained Dawson. “The type of relationship that became friendly, but you wouldn’t find in normal society. We talked about sports. He was a Redskins fan, I’m a Cowboys fan.”
“I’ve had clients who had Ph.D.s and Master’s, who taught college classes and fell on hard times,” said Copes. “People who have, for me, broken down the assumptions I went into the job with.”
Not surprisingly, NSP and its clients have also been affected by the economic downturn.
“NSP is where I’ve seen it the most,” said Copes.
“We noticed in the fall and spring many more clients,” said Libera.
“It’s a combo of the economic downturn and NSP becoming a more well-known service. There are people who have always utilized our services and people who never thought they would be here, in this situation.”
Since October, the center has seen almost 100 clients return each month and between roughly 30 to 70 new clients monthly.
To support the growing number of clients, NSP has “retooled how we schedule our time,” according to Libera. Since people often end up needing more of NSP’s services that they originally planned, the Washington office offers three days per week of appointments and two days for walk-ins. The NSP staff hopes to provide more complete service to existing clients, while not closing their doors to new ones.
Of course, as a nonprofit organization, NSP is feeling the financial pinch.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” said Libera. “The services we provide are needed more than ever and people are turning to them [nonprofits] for support as people are flipping into poverty.”
Since so many nonprofits are based on donations there is more competition for these already limited funds.NSP leaders are looking at how the organization can both continue to exist and grow to support the increase in those who need their services. Besides just focusing on fundraising, Libera said NSP is being “proactive, not reactive.” To that end, NSP is looking at how they operate and the changes they want to make in the communities they serve.
“We recognize that there is a challenge in an economic crisis,” said Libera. NSP will be closing four of its offices, but will be looking in the next five years to expand its D.C. branch into several Washington communities “to serve more clients with more student volunteers,” said Libera.
National Student Partnerships is just as valuable to the students who work there as it is to the clients it helps, especially in terms of being part of the D.C. community beyond the Hilltop, said Copes.
“You learn so much more from your clients than they learn from you,” said O’Hare.
“It’s very much a partnership,” added Copes. “I understand and empathize with a different group of people.”
Volunteers’ experience with NSP is something that will stay with them long after they graduate and leave Washington.
“It’s about showing that students care, and not just [about] living in a city for four years and getting our degree and getting out,” Dawson said.
