Now in my third year of service as an AmeriCorps VISTA in Montana, the 2023/2024 period has me very excited. Moving from California to Butte during Summer 2021, the opportunity to serve with two different nonprofit organizations in that region of the state made me a better team member through learning how to grow capacity, promoting and advertising community events, and establishing community partnerships. While difficult to understand at first, being taught these skills was incredibly useful not only for my service work but also with making me a more experienced and useful worker. Having served almost three years with three different nonprofit groups, has caused me to consider a fulltime position in this sector. An incoming VISTA with the Moving Mountains Foundation (MMF)in Missoula, applying what I have learned to assist this organization will be a test to see if I am suited for this kind of occupation. Located out of a physical therapy center, watching specialists and caregivers work together in improving the lives of Missoula’s developmentally disabled offers incredible motivation when reaching out to funders, grantors, generous individual donors and groups, and members of the community. A former patient of a therapy center, giving back to an organization that helps youth the same way that I was helped, has me feeling very optimistic about the 2023/2024 year.

Sincerely,
Ethan Krenzer