In early 2020, we welcomed a group of nine International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) participants from Botswana, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, St Lucia, Tajikistan, and Zimbabwe. The group focused on volunteerism in American communities. Pensacola City Council Member Ann Hill welcomed them to the region and Joyce Black of Visit Pensacola shared information on cultural activities for their downtime.
Gulf Coast Citizen Diplomacy Council members invited the participants to their homes for dinner and brunch over the weekend. Thank you to Philomena Madden, Jean Norman, Diane Peterson, Megan and Jerry Pratt, Faye and Robert Robinson, and John Toole for hosting. The U.S. Department of State depends on volunteers to make the IVLP possible, and the generosity of our hosts is the fuel for our mission.
As part of the group’s examination of volunteerism, the visitors got hands-on at Serving the Hungry at First United Methodist Church with Volunteer Coordinator Katie Ramsey and her team. They also cleaned the Fort Pickens shoreline with local teens from the Youth Diplomats program and the volunteers of Ocean Hour, followed by an overview of the group’s mission from Co-Presidents Sharon Gincauskas and Barbara Mozur. After this Saturday morning cleanup, the IVLP participants and Youth Diplomats engaged in a Q & A session focused on civic action.
The group also discussed volunteer engagement with representatives of Just (Justice United Seeking Transformation) Pensacola. Dr. Rick Branch, the minister of music at the first United Methodist Church, and Salma Ashmawi, the education administrator and spokesperson of the Islamic Center of Northwest Florida, explained how JUST Pensacola formed an interfaith coalition focused on education and criminal justice. The group continued its exploration of how an issue and a community need can lead to the formation of an organization with a conversation with Doug Landreth of Gay Grassroots of Northwest Florida.
They met Volunteer Recruitment Coordinator Nicole Partridge, Match Specialist Jessica Prather, and Marketing and Communication Coordinator Bella Costa of Big Brothers and Big Sisters to highlight the effectiveness of mentoring, social media and marketing efforts, and how volunteer mentors are selected, trained, and monitored. Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) Environmental Specialists Beth Fugate and Zachary Schang guided them on a site visit of the FDEP plant nursery while discussing how an organization can use volunteers to perform day-to-day indoor tasks as a well as large scale outdoor projects.
To focus on healthcare, the group spent time at Baptist Healthcare where Vice President of Clinical Education Patsy Myers and Rita Davis explored the unique challenges of using volunteers in a medical setting and the best practices in recruiting, training, and dealing with volunteer burnout. They also spent time with OASIS, a nonprofit dedicated to prevent the spread of HIV, where Prevention Director T. J. Moore led an honest and frank discussion on the importance of the NGO in utilizing volunteers to achieve its mission. Mr. Moore concluded the meeting by giving HIV tests and 1,000 condoms to the visitor from Botswana, a social media activist working for HIV and safe sex education.
The Gulf Coast Citizen Diplomacy Council is grateful to everyone who helped make this project a success and extends a special thank you to Patricia McGraw for facilitating their weekday appointments.
