SAINT PAUL, Minn. — The Twin Cities area is apparently considered the number one Metro AmeriCity. That means that the TC area is the best in the nation at attracting AmeriCorps members.
This is a figure that we should all be proud of. Also, you don't have to be a full-on adult to embody the spirit of service. Alyssa Tulloch is a prime example.
Tulloch said she knew exactly what she wanted to do during her gap year before college.
"My teacher, he told me about this job opportunity," Tulloch said. "He knew I was taking a gap year, he knew I love math and love working with kids."
As a new MathCorps enrichment tutor at Creative Arts Secondary School in St. Paul, Tulloch works at her alma mater to make sure kids don't have any gaps when it comes to math.
"It just comes really easy to me," Tulloch replied when asked why she likes math. "There's always that one class that comes super easy to you like you can pass it so easily. That's that class for me."
She as a tutor, likes to keep things light.
"I don't want to ever keep anything too serious," she said with a chuckle.
However, her decision to join MathCorps was anything but. It was a promise of one year with AmeriCorps.
"Honestly, it wasn't that hard," she said. "I kind of made the decision that I wanted to work with kids whether it be through volunteering or anything like that through my whole life. Having this opportunity was really easy to make that decision because I want to work with kids."
Spirited volunteers like Alyssa are behind the numbers that make Minnesota so proud.
"It's clearly a part of the Minnesota spirit," David Parker said. Parker is the Vice President of Research and Development at Serve Minnesota, AmeriCorp's Minnesota branch. "It's not just this year where those numbers are exciting and top five. The state's in the top five in terms of overall AmeriCorps numbers. We have been for the last five years in both the state and the metro area."
Numbers show the what. Heart, shows the why.
"So I'm a researcher so I'm trained very much to be dispassionate and look at this with a deadpan view," Parker said. "But you can't help notice that many people in Minnesota giving that year of their life, then seeing the numbers bear out and then you hear the stories."
That narrative of success keeps the volunteers steady.
"It kind of scares e to have that kind of responsibility but it's also a kind of motivation to be a better person and be positive with them," Tulloch said.
If you are interested in becoming an AmeriCorps member, you can find more information here.