As a senior at the University of Iowa, Justin Rempe knew a lot. He knew he would attend law school, he knew he wanted to use his degrees to help people, and he knew that he wanted to take a gap year before going to law school. Something he knew nothing about, though, was AmeriCorps.
“I had never heard about AmeriCorps, but a professor recommended it to me. I searched for positions on the portal, I found Iowa Legal Aid and thought that’s great, it’ll allow me to use my degree to help people and give me an opportunity to meet lawyers and other legal professionals. It felt like a perfect way to utilize my gap year.”
Justin is far from alone in being surprised by what AmeriCorps is. If you talk to most AmeriCorps alumni or members, they will likely tell you a something akin to Justin’s story: “I had no idea it existed, but once I found it, it was exactly what I was looking for.”
Those same people will also be the ones to tell you just how beneficial national service was for them. For Justin, his time with Iowa Legal Aid’s Hotline for Older Iowans program helped give him the confidence to continue pursue his career goals and reinforced his desire to do public interest work. Despite the emotional toll his service entailed (or perhaps because of it), Justin completed his year of service with a clearer vision of his future.
“Being a first-generation college student, I didn’t know for sure if I was cut out to be a lawyer. Additionally, you do not really know what you think and how you will react until you are in a situation,” says Justin, who is a now a year away from graduating from University of Iowa College of Law. “Helping older Iowans every day was very rewarding. Many calls were emotionally taxing, as I could be talking to people on one of the worst days of their lives. But going through that and learning about myself was beneficial in many ways.”
Justin is right: AmeriCorps service can be taxing. As an AmeriCorps member, you work to solve community issues at community levels. This means you get an upfront, uncompromising, and oftentimes ugly reality of what life is like for individuals in need. This is where AmeriCorps service gets heavy and can be emotionally difficult for members. But, according to Justin, it is also where the overwhelming amount of good comes from too, both for the community and the member.
“Knowing that you have the capability and skills to help someone through a terrible time—helping them navigate the court system, navigate contracts, help them solve problems and get them the resources they need—it is very rewarding. It builds your confidence up and prepares you to problem solve community and human issues. Being able to effectively help others makes the difficulties more than worth it.”
And it is persevering, together, through those difficult times that we are able to see the best parts of humankind. Justin’s favorite memory from his service highlights this.
“I was on a call with a woman who was going to get evicted that day. So, it was a very urgent ordeal. My job was to get her info down so Legal Aid lawyers could determine whether or not they could represent her. While waiting for an attorney to get back to me, we got to talking, and she was incredibly supportive and invested in learning about my future in law school. Her genuine interest and care about my story, all while she was going through a very difficult time, was something that will always stick with me. It shows the depths of humanity.” If you want to have a meaningful impact on a community, check out AmeriCorps. If you want to build yourself up—your skills, your confidence, your network—do AmeriCorps. If you want to see the need in the world, and want to work directly to address it, do AmeriCorps. As Justin put it, “There will undoubtedly be tough days, and it is not an easy experience, but it is absolutely a worthwhile experience.”