Celebrating National AmeriCorps Week: Get to Know Jonathan and Ivan

We have two outstanding AmeriCorps members serving at BCNC: Jonathan and Ivan.

Jonathan is a college access coordinator and Massachusetts Promise Fellow at BCNC. He works with Quincy high school seniors on their college and scholarship applications. He also facilitates weekly workshops to help high school juniors think about college and life after high school. For many students, they are the first in their family to attend college and the preparation can be overwhelming. Jonathan leads workshops that cover different topics on the college access journey. In a recent workshop, each youth was given a different role to play in a financial aid simulation. They had to figure out how to settle their financial aid for their first year of college. Afterward, Jonathan gave a presentation about the costs of college and how to apply for financial aid.

Ivan is an AmeriCorps member with the New American Integration Program. He serves in the Adult Education program and provides support for our ESOL for Customer Service training program and morning ESOL classes in Boston. Ivan also teaches a citizenship class, preparing students for the U.S. naturalization process, test, and interview. Volunteers from English for New Bostonians came to help conduct mock interviews. Two weeks ago, two students from Ivan’s class passed their citizenship tests!