Current service programs include Choices for Children Mentoring Program, Notre Dame AmeriCorps and Service in the City.

Choices for Children Mentoring Program

Click here for a link to "Catholic School Program Helps Cincinnati's Youth" article in The Catholic Telegraph (1/19/02).

Choices for Children is a mentoring program at Corryville Catholic Elementary School committed to following our 8th grade students through the final months of their time at Corryville Catholic into and through the next four years of high school.  Mentors are effective partners with our students, their families, and the school in developing successful high school students and graduates.

Benefits of the mentoring program include:

• Mentors can bring new sets of life experiences to young people to help fuel their aspirations and achievement motivation.
  
• Mentors can help students use free time better.
  
• Mentors can help students deal with daily obstacles and new decisions they will encounter, especially as they adjust to high school life.
  
• Mentors can help students gain experiences that will assist and accelerate their thinking about careers and economic independence.  Research indicates that the opportunity to learn more about careers and the workplace in general increases academic motivation and achievement.

Mentors can help in a variety of formats.  A traditional one-on-one relationship is possible.  Some prefer a "team mentoring" approach in which several mentors are assigned to a group of mentees.  Successful mentoring programs have set up their meetings in the community, in the schools, and increasingly, in the workplace.  Our program is just beginning and the format(s) we develop will be influenced by the informed wishes of those who want to be Corryville Catholic mentors.

For more information on Choices for Children, please contact Mr. Joseph Speaks at 281-4856.

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Notre Dame AmeriCorps

Director: Sister Judy Tensing, SNDdeN 
727 Ezzard Charles Drive
Cincinnati, Ohio 45203
Phone: 513-381-5882
Fax: 513-381-5882
E-mail: jtensing@one.net

Notre Dame AmeriCorps is a private-public partnership forged in 1995 between the Notre Dame Mission Volunteers, a volunteer program which places volunteers at various ministry sites to work with the poor and oppressed, and AmeriCorps, a federally funded service program.

In the Ohio Province, there are currently 14 Notre Dame AmeriCorps volunteers tutoring at-risk children in three inner-city schools in Cincinnati: Corryville Catholic, St. Joseph and St. Francis Seraph. The tutoring program takes a holistic approach — helping children by reaching beyond the school to involve parents in their children’s successes.

Program Requirements and Benefits:

• Volunteers (women and men) must be 21 or older, can be single or married but without dependents, must be in good physical and psychological health and have college or work experience.

• Volunteers receive health insurance plus $7,945 annually for room, board and living expenses. AmeriCorps members also receive an educational award of $4,725 upon completion of a year of service. The award may be applied to qualified loans, an approved school-to-work program or future education.

• Most non-local volunteers live together in community. Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur assist with living arrangements and provide community resource support.

• Training includes a week-long orientation program, a midyear retreat and workshops throughout the year. At the ministry site, volunteers receive orientation and supervision.

• Applicants may apply anytime, but application by (date) will have greater opportunity for admission.

• Additional sites, sponsored by other Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur provinces, are available in Apopka, Fla., Baltimore, Md., Boston, Mass., Chicago, Ill., and San Francisco, Calif.

For information or an application to Notre Dame AmeriCorps,
please complete our Guestbook

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Service in the City

Director: Sister Gerry Bolzan, SNDdeN 
3058 N. Mango Avenue, #223
Chicago, Illinois 60634-5216
Phone: 773-237-6367 or 1-800-293-3453
Fax: 773-622-8511
E-mail: glbolzan@aol.com

One week may not be enough time to change the world, but it is more than enough time to change someone’s life — maybe your own! The Service in the City program offers participants an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of the poor who reside in some of our country’s neediest urban areas.

Developed in response to requests for short term volunteer opportunities, and as a means to introduce the Notre Dame way of life to women, Service in the City offers ministry opportunities around the U.S. For one week, participants serve at an urban site, living, working and praying with a small community of sisters and other volunteers. Ministry opportunities in the Ohio Province include working in a homeless shelter, tutoring and building homes for low-income families.

The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur will provide room and board during the Service in the City week. Participants should:

• provide their own transportation to the site,
• have health insurance,
• be responsible for any recreational, personal or medical expenses, and
• be able to participate for the entire week.

For information on a Service in the City ministry site near you see our Ohio Province Events.

Additional sites, sponsored by other Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur provinces, include Baltimore, Md., Boston, Mass., Hartford, Conn., and Los Angeles, Calif.

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