Visit us online at www.OutdoorNebraska.org

Nebraska is home to a diverse mix of wildlife, some of which need our help to survive. Assist our efforts by looking for the ‘Check for

Wildlife’ symbol on your Nebraska tax return and making a donation.Or donate directly from our website.

All donations, big or small, help preserve thesenative species for future generations.

Nebraska is home to a diverse mix of wildlife, some of which need our help to survive. Assist our efforts by looking for the ‘Check for

Wildlife’ symbol on your Nebraska tax return and making a donation.Or donate directly from our website.

All donations, big or small, help preserve thesenative species for future generations.

Support Nebraska’s nongame,threatened and endangered species

Support Nebraska’s nongame,threatened and endangered species

A 2012 Nebraska Park Permit is your ticket to a whole year of fun at over 80 park and recreational areas statewide. Get yours today!

Your Season Pass to Fun!Your Season Pass to Fun!

Make cabin and camping reservations online or by

calling 402-471-1414

Make cabin and camping reservations online or by

calling 402-471-1414

Make cabin and camping reservations online or by

calling 402-471-1414

10 PRAIRIE FIRE April 2012

“Sonny’s Corner” is a regular column in Prairie Fire featuring commentary on civil rights and justice issues. Our friend and Omaha colleague, Joseph P. “Sonny” Foster, died suddenly

at age 54 in August 2005. He left an uncompleted agenda, as did many of our civil rights and justice mentors and heroes. We shall attempt to move forward on that unfinished agenda

through this column.

Sonny’s CornerThe Pertinence of PublicService: A Year as anAmeriCorps VISTA

By JESSICA CLEM-MCCLARENADJUSTING my neon work vest, I blewaway a bead of sweat and handed a fold-er of neighborhood maps to a team ofvolunteers standing in front of me. Itwas the middle of July and an oppres-sive, unforgiving heat threatened towipe the cheerful tone out of my voice.

My volunteers, however, were eagerto begin work. A team of high schoolstudents, they were ready to perform acommunity betterment project called“Neighborhood Scan” in a South Omahacommunity known for incredible artand addictive food. Despite the heat, Icouldn’t help but become enthused asthe kids began their Scan, smiling andlaughing on the sidewalks.

As an AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteersin Service to America), projects such asthese were typical in my line of work.One of four VISTAs with the City ofOmaha program “Omaha Serves,” Iserved as the 2011 neighborhoodrestoration director, working withnearly 100 neighborhood associationsin Omaha and Council Bluffs. I assistedan organization called theNeighborhood Center with volunteerprograms to strengthen, build andimprove neighborhoods and their asso-ciations. Programs like NeighborhoodScan kept residents empowered andeducated to keep their neighborhoodsthriving. Remembering how many peo-ple we were helping through this proj-ect, I wiped my brow as we continued towork in the summer sun.

In 2010 the City of Omaha mayor’soffice applied for a grant from theRockefeller Center in New York for ayear-long AmeriCorps program. Oncegranted, the Omaha Serves programwas established and four VISTA volun-teer positions created. The volunteersworked out of the mayor’s office but

were placed in full-time positions witharea nonprofits. These nonprofits wereable to have a VISTA volunteer workingwithout any cost to them (besides cof-fee, of course). The cost compared tobenefits for the community is immeas-urable, and the benefits reach out to allresidents in Omaha.

A full-time workweek reaps littlemonetary benefit as a member of the

AmeriCorps. A prized public serviceprogram, volunteers sign a year-longcontract for a poverty stipend for over1,000 hours of service. As I signed mycontract, I waved goodbye to frivolitiesand embraced a humble life of duty anddedication to improving the lives of res-idents in Omaha.

“The most challenging aspect ofVISTA life is personal,” said CraigHowell, former Nonprofit CapacityBuilding VISTA and current chief serv-ice officer for Omaha Serves. “You workon poverty issues by immersing self intopoverty. The rewarding aspect is notonly the fact that you have worked tohelp others, but you learn firsthandwithout any hesitation that we are allalike.”

Sparking the 1963 call for nationalpublic service, President John F.Kennedy “envisioned a national servicecorps ‘to provide urgently needed serv-ices in urban and rural poverty areas’”(www.americorps.gov). Modeled afterthe PeaceCorps, an internationallybased volunteer organization, theAmeriCorps strived to address nationalurban ills and poverty issues. The VISTAprogram was then established by theEconomic Opportunity Act of 1964 to

serve the most impoverished. PresidentLyndon B. Johnson welcomed the firstclass of 20 VISTA volunteers saying,“Your pay will be low; the conditions ofyour labor often will be difficult. Butyou will have the satisfaction of leadinga great national effort and you will havethe ultimate reward which comes tothose who serve their fellow man”(www.americorps.gov/history).

Thousands of VISTA volunteers havesince heeded the call and have workedfor the last several decades creatingcommunity projects, small businessesand educational programs.

In 1993 President Bill Clinton signedthe National and Community ServiceTrust Act, which established theCorporation for National andCommunity Service (www.americorps.gov/about/ac/history.asp). This pro-gram embraced all service programsunder one name. Built on the 1990National Service Act signed byPresident Bush, the AmeriCorps pro-gram was born. The AmeriCorps specif-ically focused on volunteer work in theareas of education, health, environmentand public safety (www.americorps.gov/about/ac/history.asp). The VISTAprogram was also incorporated into theAmeriCorps program, creating a multi-tude of volunteer opportunities in near-ly every critical need area.

“In September 1994, the first class ofAmeriCorps members—20, 000strong—began serving in more than1,000 communities” (www.ameri-corps.gov). The strong presence of thevolunteers was felt on a federal level,and in 2003 President Bush signed the

“Strengthen AmeriCorps Program Act,”doubling the number of volunteers.

In September 2011 four volunteerswere selected to begin work onimprovement projects. The initiativesincluded the “My Community, OurChildren” mentoring program,Neighborhood Restoration, NonprofitCapacity Building and Lemonade Days.Children learned the value of saving andresponsibly spending money throughLemonade Days, a program designed togive children a chance to run their own“business,” their stand. Children savedmoney, spent money on their stand anddonated a portion of their earnings to acharity of their choosing. In May 2011,3,000 children participated in the pro-gram, sprinkling drops of yellow allover the city with brightly decoratedlemonade stands. Around $225,000dollars were earned by the stands, thechildren saved $25,000 and $37,500were donated to organizations through-out Omaha.

The mentoring initiative recruitednearly 300 male mentors to work withlocal youth. Twenty percent of mentorstrained planned on staying as long-termmentors.

“I watched as people began to havehope for their futures, some of them forthe first time,” said Reggie Holt,mentoring VISTA. “Those who had oncedesecrated their communities were nowbeing given a chance to build it up ratherthan tear it down. The end result wasthey reclaimed their neighborhoods ashome and strived for better livingthrough volunteering to help others.”

Volunteers are crucial to the healthydevelopment and sustainability of non-profits. In a recent survey of 155 Omahanonprofit organizations, 42.5 percent ofthose surveyed did not have a volunteermanager (“Omaha Serves 2011Report”). Over half of these nonprofitssaid their most challenging task wasorganizing and recruiting volunteers.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 11

‘The most challenging aspect of VISTAlife is personal. You work on poverty

issues by immersing self into poverty.’

Prairie Fire and the Crane Trust

Nature & Visitor Center would like to thank

the following sponsors:

PRAIRIE FIRE April 2012 15

This spring Prairie Fire isoffering special advertising

space for Buy Fresh Buy Local.For more information and to

be included, please contact

Nancy Hamer(402) 499-1306

nancy@prairiefirenewspaper.com

Are you involvedwith Buy Fresh

Buy Local?

“Field Guide to Wildflowers ofNebraska and the Great Plains,Second Edition” Author: Jon FarrarPublisher: University of Iowa Press

By CHRIS HELZERIF you happen to own a copy of JonFarrar’s “Field Guide to Wildflowers ofNebraska and the Great Plains” from 20years ago, you’re a lucky person. Only10,000 copies were printed, and all weresold within about a year and a half ofpublication. Since that time, anyone notfortunate enough to get in on the originalwindfall has had to beg, borrow or stealcopies from others. This forced those ofus who actually owned the book to beconstantly vigilant lest a “friend” walkoff with what had quickly become notonly a valuable field guide but also a col-lector’s item. Fortunately, through whatI’m sure was clever foresight by the orig-inal publisher, the books were designedwith a cover that fell off after only amonth or two of use. I’m pretty sure themain reason I still own my copy is that noone searching my bookshelf or field packwould have recognized the coverless,dog-eared and taped-together remainsof the field guide as something worth“borrowing.” Boy, were they wrong.

Fortunately, after 20 years, I canfinally let my guard down because a sec-ond edition has come out, and it’s evenbetter than the first—and that’s sayinga lot. I sure hope they printed a lot more

of them this time because the coverseems very firmly affixed…

The second edition is a beautifulbook, published this time by theUniversity of Iowa Press. It still featuresFarrar’s excellent photographs, but thesharp and saturated reproduction ofthose images make them nearly jump offthe page. The new edition is about 50pages longer than the first. While thatadditional length accommodates theaddition of a few new wildflowerspecies, it also allows the original pho-tos and text more room to breathe, mak-ing the book both more attractive andeasier to read. Farrar also updated hisessay on wildflower conservation andincluded an updated map and descrip-tions of Nebraska’s wildflower regionsand the plant communities found there.

As in the original version, the newguide has the wildflowers organized byflower color, and the species withineach color class arranged by floweringdate. In other words, if you find a yellowflower blooming in May, you can pick

up the book, flip to the yellow flowersection and find that the flower withinits pages, along with the other spring-blooming plants. The new edition evenadded some color tabs to make it thatmuch easier to find the right section ofthe book quickly.

Farrar’s descriptions of each flowerinclude common and Latin names,blooming season, the habitats andregions of the state it’s likely to befound and a long, detailed descriptionof the plant to help the reader be sure

the plant they’re identifying reallymatches the one on the page. When aplant is similar in appearance to anoth-er, the portions of the description thatare most useful in distinguishing onefrom another are emphasized by italics.In many cases, the text also includesother interesting trivia about the plantitself. For example, I now know thatcommon mullein (a tall plant with yel-

low flowers) is native to Europe, whereRomans dipped the dried flower spikesin tallow and burned them as torches.In addition, if I want to recapture theblond hair of my early youth, I couldboil the flowers in lye to make yellowhair dye!

While the field guide is written in clear and conciselanguage, itn e c e s s a r i l yincludes someterminology

that might not be familiar to some read-ers. Fortunately, there is an illustratedglossary at the back of the book thatincludes line drawings of plant parts,along with the names used to describethem. While the glossary is very useful,the short length of that section is testa-ment to how well Farrar describes theplants in ways that don’t often require avisit to the back of the book.

The “Field Guide to Wildflowers ofNebraska and the Great Plains” is abook that anyone with even a passinginterest in the outdoors of Nebraskashould own. Whether you’re a biologist,nature enthusiast, hunter, fisherman orlandowner, it’s a resource you will findyourself using again and again. You canbuy the book through the NebraskaGame and Parks Commission or fromjust about any bookseller. It might be agood idea to buy a few extras, just incase you have “friends” like mine wholike to borrow things now and then.

Chris Helzer is an ecologist and Eastern

Nebraska Program director for The Nature

Conservancy. He supervises the management

and restoration of approximately 5,000 acres of

land in central and eastern Nebraska—primari-

ly along the central Platte River. Helzer is also

the author of “The Ecology and Management of

Prairies in the Central United States,” published

by the University of Iowa Press. Read more from

him at www.prairieecologist.com.

Book Review

Sponsored by: Nebraskans for Peace Lincoln Chapter, Peace and Justice Commi�ee, First

Plymouth Congregational, National Association of Social

Workers, Nebraska chapter

FILM SCREENING & PANEL DISCUSSION: “When We Stop Counting”:

Education, Poverty, and Culture.First Plymouth Congregational Church; 2000 D Street, Mayflower Hall APR 17,

7–9 PM

Panelists: Dr. Steve Joel, Super-intendent of Schools, Lincoln, NE; Elisabeth Reinkordt, film-maker, Nebraska Department of Education; Karen Buchfinck, counselor, Crete, NE, schools; Paul A. Olson, UNL Education and English, former USOE Study Commission.

�e documentary, “When We Stop Counting,” follows six Hispanic high school students in Crete, NE, through their personal struggles and triumphs while bearing the pressure of their parents’ back-breaking sacrifice in hopes of achieving the American Dream.

Plains coreopsis. (Jon Farrar)

Purple poppy mallow. (Jon Farrar)