Americana Community Center Financial Literacy AmeriCorps VISTA

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Americana Community Center's mission is to provide a spectrum of services to the diverse individuals and families of the Louisville Metro area, including refugees, immigrants, and those born in the U.S. These services enable people to realize their individual potential, build strong families, and create a healthy and supportive community for all. The great cultural, ethnic and economic diversity of our community, especially the neighborhoods surrounding the Americana Community Center, provide a wealth of challenges and opportunities.

Americana currently serves over 5,000 individuals from 37 zip codes across Louisville and from 101 countries around the world.The VISTA project will develop and expand financial literacy resources for refugee, immigrant, and low-income adults to improve and increase employment opportunities for the target population and enable them to be economically self-sufficient. The VISTA will further work to make the financial literacy initiative sustainable through partnerships, resource development, grant-seeking, and data collection.

• Create a financial literacy program to meet the needs of the rapidly growing foreign-born population in Louisville
• Collaborate with the Louisville Asset Building Coalition (LABC) to increase awareness of the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) tax program
• Develop a new program that incorporates computer literacy and career development for refugee and immigrant adults
• Expand community members' access to financial literacy resources by developing partnerships and workshops for refugees and immigrants

AmeriCorps VISTA is a year-long service project focused on capacity building. The program was created in 1965 as a way to combat poverty in the U.S. with passion. Today, there are hundreds of VISTAs across the nation committed to service in their communities. VISTAs are expected to commit one year to serving the community and are paid at the federal poverty level. For more information about VISTA, including a description of the program benefits, read more on the National Service website: http://www.nationalservice.gov/programs/americorps/americorps-vista.

Learn more about the 'Where Louisville Meets the World' VISTA project at https://vistasintheville.wordpress.com/.