FL|CC Celebrates Stephanie Victoria, AmeriCorps VISTA!

Happy AmeriCorps Week 2017!

During AmeriCorps Week, Florida Campus Compact will be honoring and celebrating the commitment of our AmeriCorps members! AmeriCorps members make an extraordinary impact across our nation every day. Each day this week, we’ll be celebrating one of our amazing members and highlighting the important work they do.

Learn more at the AmeriCorps Week webpage and search for #AmeriCorpsWorks on social media.

Today, FL|CC would like to recognize:

Stephanie Victoria, Miami Dade College, AmeriCorps VISTA

“Stephanie Victoria joined the Earth Ethics Institute (EEI) team in May 2016 and quickly added to our program. Not only did she maintain and enhance several existing projects, she initiated many of her own. She recently helped the Yes for Environmental Sustainability (Y.E.S.) Club at Kendall campus to successfully ban Styrofoam in the cafeteria. The movement quickly spread, and now other Y.E.S. Clubs are working on bans on their own MDC campuses. Stephanie has worked with and supported many faculty members and community partners, developing and offering consistent, interdisciplinary, and engaged service learning experiences related to sustainability and Earth Literacy. With her “Crochet for Change” project, Stephanie teaches students to create “plarn” (plastic yarn) from used plastic shopping bags, and then to crochet the plarn into sleeping mats to be donated to the homeless. Additionally, she continued and expanded our CROPS (Community Rooted Organic Produce Services) program, a purchasing coop at three campuses, by creating promotions, connecting with the farmer, training student volunteers, and providing members with a quality experience.

EEI student engagement is way up both in YES! Club membership and service-learning. Students who have worked with Stephanie not only return again and again, but have influenced other students to join EEI as well. Stephanie took the initiative to create a weekly emailing blast announcing all EEI opportunities to serve the community and students embraced it. Thanks to Stephanie, we now have an email contact group that will continue once she’s gone.”

~ Colleen Ahern-Hettich, Earth Ethics Institute, Director, Miami Dade College

Thank you, Stephanie!