Giving a year to change the world

Four Wheaton seniors plan to spend the next year helping inner-city schoolchildren and building stronger urban neighborhoods.

Romel Antoine '09, Julia Dekermendjian '09, Oriana Federico '09, and Emily Hildreth '09 won admission to City Year--a community service program that annually recruits more than 1,400 young people for an intense, full-time service opportunity to work with children, ranging from elementary to high school students.

Beginning in late August, these four Wheaton students, along with high school seniors and college graduates from across the country, will tutor and mentor public school children in literacy as well as plan arts and cultural enrichment programs.

Aaron Bos-Lun '12, who intends to major in political science, participated in City Year last year.

"My favorite part of City Year was feeling the way I did while I was a part of it, because I was living a life where my ideas became actions."

Dekermendjian, Federico, and Hildreth, who are from Cambridge, Andover, and Reading, Mass. respectively, will live and work in the Boston area. Antoine, who moved from Trinidad to Cambridge, Mass. seven years ago, will serve in San José, Calif.

"I needed something completely new and different from the East Coast," Antoine said, "I looked at all the places that I could have gone with City Year, and San José seemed to stick out for me. I've heard really great things about it. I've never been to San José, but everyone I've talked to has talked about it as ‘a different culture'."

"One thing I am really excited for is the opportunity to experience something different and immerse myself in diversity," Hildreth said, "I want to try to stay open-minded, learn from people I work with, and get a sense of what goes on in a city like Boston."

City Year calls its volunteer workforce the Corps and the military overtones go beyond the name. City Year workers start each day with physical training and team-building exercises. They wear uniforms, too; work at schools assigned to them by the organization and put in  long hours.

For all that, the application process is competitive. "They want people to make it very clearly-known that they want to make a change," Federico said. The organization looks for leadership ability, including sports and prior youth experience, such as camp counseling. On average, one in four applicants is accepted.

But the benefits go beyond the weekly stipend ($170 tax-deductible), public transit pass and cellular phone. Antoine, who was referred by friends with Corps experience, said his participation in City Year will distinguish him from competitors in job and graduate school interviews. The organization also provides undergraduate or graduate loans. A women's studies major, he plans on pursuing a master's in risk and prevention education at Harvard after the term ends.

As a chemistry major and international relations minor, Dekermendjian will study chemistry in graduate school in 2010. Federico will work with women's activism or human rights with her major in women's studies.

Hildreth, who is a history major with a double minor in Hispanic studies and general education, ideally will teach history in high school after a completing a graduate program in education. Hildreth, who was referred by the Filene Center for Work and Learning, hopes to learn different cultural perspectives and ideas through civic engagement in an inner city, and calls this program "the perfect starting point" to launch her teaching career.

Along with City Year, AmeriCorps sponsors Teach for America and many religiously-geared programs. Dekermendjian said, "I was getting a lot of e-mails from Teach for America wanting more information about myself. I wasn't ready to dedicate myself for two years to something just yet. Everything about it [City Year] just seemed to fit me, and I fit the program."

Based on his own experience, Bos-Lun predicts that the seniors will have "an extremely valuable experience." He served in Washington, D.C., tutoring a third-grade student at the Garrison Elementary School and recruiting middle school students for a service-learning program.

"I'm very excited and happy to hear that Wheaton students are joining City Year this year," he said, "And I would strongly encourage more Wheaton students to consider being a part of this incredible program in the coming years."