Civic Fellows 2022-2023 Partner Sites
Please view the project descriptions for our Civic Fellows Partner sites. Click on the site to read more about the project.
Loudoun Cares
Project Description:
We are seeking a highly motivated /intern who can help assist with daily Loudoun Cares communications, marketing, and social media. The Communications/Marketing Intern would assist Loudoun Cares staff with graphic design, content writing for social media, press releases, and the like. They would assist with special events as needed to help plan, promote, and execute a successful event. This volunteer would report to the Loudoun Cares Operations & Program Coordinator who will help guide them on their weekly task with input from our Executive Director.
Website: https://www.loudouncares.org/
Primary Duties and Responsibilities:
- Administer the creation and publishing of relevant, high-quality content for Loudoun Cares newsletters, website, and social media posts.
- Implement a content calendar to manage content and plan specific, timely marketing campaigns.
- Write and execute a monthly newsletter that will include information for member organizations and volunteers.
- Find ways to increase community engagement using social media campaigns/posts.
- Create a bank of compelling content for future social/newsletter use.
- Special event planning and execution in a team setting
- Other duties as assigned
Modality:
Hybrid
Mon-Thurs, Flexible Schedule
Requirements:
Background check
The Arc of Loudoun
Project Description:
There are specifically two projects available for GMU Civic Fellows including:
1) Support the Development Department including event logistics for fundraising events, coordinating volunteers, learning how to manage event budgets, entering and acknowledging donor gifts, and supporting the Chief Development Officer as assigned.
2) Supporting all six of our programs as needed to enter beneficiary data into our new case management platform. Our six programs include:
- Ability Fitness Center, a therapeutic fitness and wellness center for people with neurological and developmental disabilities.
- A Life Like Yours (ALLY) Advocacy Center works diligently to meet the unmet needs of the disability community by providing free information on disability rights; referrals; resources; counseling; events and workshops for people with disabilities, their families, and the professionals who work with them.
- Aurora Behavior Clinic, a year-round, analytic behavior center, offers 1:1 and group Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), Occupational, Speech and Language therapies and social skills to children and adults of all ages with behavior-related disabilities.
- Aurora School, a year-round private day school, provides students ages 5-22 with the most acute intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), including Autism and behavioral challenges, with individualized education.
- Open Door Learning Center, a hands-on learning experience for typically developing children and those with intellectual/developmental disabilities (IDD) ages 2-7, focuses on building social skills, teaching developmentally appropriate academics, and getting preschool students and their parents ready for general education Kindergarten.
- Project Horse employs a non-riding, evidence-based approach to help people manage a wide variety of emotional, behavioral, and cognitive challenges.
Website: www.thearcofloudoun.org
Modality:
Hybrid
Monday – Friday, select special events
Requirements:
Partner application and background check
Fairfax County Department of Family Services
Project Description:
Civic Fellows would be working with the Body Safety Program. This FREE school-based program gives children a comfortable, non-alarming way to talk about the sensitive and complex problem of child abuse.
The Childhelp® Speak Up Be Safe curriculum used by the Department of Family Services, is designed to teach children the skills needed to stay safe through learning:
- They own their body.
- About appropriate and inappropriate touching.
- Some parts of their bodies are private.
- It’s adults' job to keep them safe.
- To identify their safe adults.
- They have choices in unsafe situations.
- It is never too late to ask for help.
- It is never their fault if someone abuses them.
The program provides all the materials, and any equipment volunteers need to run their presentations. Trained facilitators lead a two-hour interactive presentation for children that:
Is tailored to children in Pre-K through sixth grade.
- Takes place in schools, community and child development centers or other community groups.
- Includes an age-appropriate video and discussion.
- Uses the Childhelp® Speak Up Be Safe curriculum.
In addition to this work, you will also learn and support our various programs and learn how to develop community partners and our adopt-a family holiday program.
Website: https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/familyservices/children-youth/volunteer-partner-services
Modality:
In-person only
Tuesday – Thursday
Requirements:
Access to a car
Northern Virginia Science Center Foundation, Children's Science Center
Project Description:
Civic Fellows will work with our YDI staff to create policies, processes, and procedures to enable the organization to expand from 85 youth leadership/internship opportunities per year to 150 leadership/internships per year to support our future science center location.
General Responsibilities:
- Assist with organization, interpretation, and communication of various data sets understanding the needs of varied constituencies
- Assist with the internship selection process for all youth programs, including but not limited to application review, interviews, inquiry requests, and candidate feedback
- Collaborate on the creation, presentation, and feedback of our professional skills training opportunities for our internship programs
- Support intern and volunteer orientations as they occur. This can include leading experiments, tours, presentations, and onboarding process
- Assist in the development and implementation of a feedback collection method for our various programs
- Support lab operations when needed
- Perform other duties as necessary or assigned
Website: www.novasci.org
Modality:
Hybrid
Monday – Friday, in-person and virtual
Weekends, in-person
Requirements:
Must be fully vaccinated for COVID19
Background check
Northern Virginia Family Service
Project Description:
Communications:
- Strategize ways to engage audiences on NVFS owned channels.
- Help the communications team with creating content such as simple graphics and messages for NVFS social media channels. Any design or video editing skills are a plus.
- Take photos for NVFS online and print content. Photography skills are a plus.
- Write blog posts and other text pieces for NVFS website.
- (Bonus) We would be open to someone who is bilingual/Spanish speaker who might be able to do translation from English to Spanish.
Stewardship:
- Help design, edit, and print gratitude reports for donors
- Help design and mail post cards for special donors
- Data analysis (not entry)
- Ongoing story collection (initiate or follow-up with staff on story leads)
- Assistance with in-house mailings
Research and Data Analysis:
- Research nonprofits in Loudoun County, trends in giving, needs of the community, etc.
- Work with Community & Volunteer Engagement team to develop and analyze a survey related to the volunteer experience since the start of the COIVD pandemic.
- Research potential new Operation Turkey sites for FY 2024
Drives:
- Coordinate the registration/distribution logistics with area schools for Operation Turkey
- Assist with onsite logistics and coordination for Operation Turkey drive and distribution
Website: www.nvfs.org
Modality:
Hybrid
Monday – Friday
Requirements:
Background check
The Office of Sustainability at George Mason University
Project Description:
Lead a university-wide action and awareness campaign in support of Mason’s single-use plastics and polystyrene elimination efforts! You will work in the Office of Sustainability with Mason’s Plastics Free working group to create a campaign in support of our new ‘buy less, buy better’ strategy promoting fiscal and environmental resource responsibility. Mason eliminated half of its single-use plastics and polystyrene purchasing in less than a year, so we want to share this exciting news with students, staff, and faculty!
In this role, you will contribute to the Plastic Free Mason strategy, including supporting the development of content, resource guides, engagement activities, and communications materials. You will support the promotion of Mason’s ‘better’ solutions, specifically reusables, aluminum cans, third-party certified compostable items, and more.
You will engage the Mason community in many ways – kiosking, tabling, video conferencing, presenting (student groups, classes, etc.), stickering, postering, and more! This is an impactful opportunity for you to promote positive social change that is fiscally and environmentally responsible while fostering a culture of sustainability at Mason.
Website: https://green.gmu.edu/
Modality:
Hybrid
Monday – Friday
Fellowship Square Foundation, Inc.
Project Description:
Fellowship Square is seeking the assistance of Civic Fellow to research technical tools that could assist in capturing and reporting on program outcomes. Fellowship Square is currently struggling with staff capacity to find viable tools for measuring the impact of our programs. Much of the data we currently collect is qualitative vs. quantitative. Reliable program data would help Fellowship Square demonstrate its effectiveness in serving low-income older adults and thereby may lead to future funding sources.
We are seeking a Fellow with knowledge of social service program measurement as well as data collection, management, and reporting. Specific responsibilities and deliverables include:
- Developing and conducting a needs assessment of Fellowship Square’s current program reporting capacity and future needs.
- Deliverable: Needs Assessment Report
- Develop a list of requirements for a technical solution that could meet those needs.
- Deliverable: Detailed Requirements List
- Research available technological solutions and develop a comparison matrix.
- Deliverable: Comparison matrix of technological solutions.
- Deliverable: Report on findings and make recommendations.
Website: www.fellowshipsquare.org
Modality:
Hybrid
Tuesday; Friday
Cornerstones
Project Description:
Civic Fellows would be working directly with our youth team to design and implement a program model to engage disconnected high school youth. The target population would be high school youth who are under performing academically and/or not engaged with school or community activities. The program would have three goals:
- To help youth improve their academic performance.
- To help participant youth further develop their SEL competencies (self-awareness; self-management; social aware-ness; relationship building; and Responsible Decision Making)
- To help participant youth further develop their Virginia 5 C's Skills (critical thinking; collaboration; communication; creative thinking)
This program will target youth from our Opportunity Neighborhood communities. These communities have been identified by Fairfax County as high barrier communities where youth are limited in their ability to build the necessary life, social, and employment skills necessary to live sustainable, thriving lives and help to break cycles of generational poverty; not because of their personal ability but more so due to the multiple barriers they encounter.
The Civic Fellows would spend the first part of their time with us helping to develop an engaging framework for our youth. Their generational perspective would be invaluable as we look to complete the development of this framework. The second part of their internship will be recruiting and engaging targeted youth as well as helping to implement the program activities. These activities will range in scope based on the program’s final framework.
Website: www.cornerstonvesva.org
Modality:
Hybrid, 75% will be in-person.
Tuesday; Thursday; Friday
Requirements:
Availability from 4pm – 7pm
Dulles South Food Pantry
Project Description:
The majority of the onsite work that takes place at DSFP happens all day on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. In addition, we are open on Saturdays from 10 - 11:30 a.m. Ideally, we'd like the student to be onsite each of the days, at least once, to fully understand what happens on each day. After that, we'd like the student to commit to regularly supporting either our Monday night Receive and Stock shift (7 - 8 pm) or our Saturday Receive & Stock Shift (10 - 11:30 a.m.).
Once the student becomes familiar with our mission and our operations, we'd like the student to assist with other items such as:
- Administrative tasks such as answering incoming calls and responding to emails from the community
- Designing a food delivery program for people who are not able to come to the Pantry due to medical reasons or transportation issues
- Supporting our grants program by researching potential grants, drafting grant applications, and creating a template repository to make applying for grants more streamlined and efficient
- Additional projects and tasks as identified by the DSFP team
Website: www.dsfp.org
Modality:
Hybrid
Monday; with some Saturday 10a – 11:30a hours
Requirements:
Access to a car
Ability to lift 30lb and stand for several hours
Workforce Innovation Skills Hub
Position Description:
Rationale: The Learning coach is one of the central roles in the Learning to Learn program. Coaches work with learners one-on-one during each session to guide the learners as they practice and acquire new learning skills. The coach serves as a “guide on the side”, helping the learners build and carry out their learning plans.
Training for coaches will take place at the beginning of the semester. Coaches will meet in-person with learners 4 days per week. Coaches will also attend weekly planning sessions with Lead Teachers to prepare for students. Each 2-hour session consists of setup, coaching, cleanup, and debriefing.
Responsibilities/Expectations:
Each coach will be assigned at least one child in grades 3-6, to work with no more than one child at a time. Coaches are expected to:
- Arrive on time and prepare work area
- Work one-on-one with learners
- Guide learners through the lesson of the day
- Notice learner’s learning behaviors—both those that are helpful and those that are not helpful for learning and points them out to the learner in a way that is clear, affirming, and supportive
- Establish and maintain proper boundaries of respect and safety
- Keep excellent records of learner progress and challenges
- Attend all required trainings & meetings
- Model proper self-disciple, self-talk, and responsibility
- Ask for help with learners when needed or when unsure how to proceed
- Guide learners in setting up and cleaning up work area
Modality:
In-person
Monday – Friday