Educational Media Reviews Online

The East Bay [San Francisco] AmeriCorps program placed 21 young racially, culturally, and ethnically diverse volunteers in three area communities. AmeriCorps volunteers, who work a forty-hour week, receive a small stipend, and at the end of their service receive a $4725 education grant, served as tutors, mentors and health educators for Bay area community and school organizations. This documentary follows the experience of several of those volunteers as they worked to make a difference in their community while at the same time they sought to find their own direction.

A heartfelt and inspiring examination of the experiences of the volunteers revealed both their intense dedication to the children they worked with and their own inner struggles and doubts. The camera followed the experiences of Steve, a young African American, Ivan, a self described black Latino, and Katy, a Caucasian from a “culturally isolated background.” Steve, a gifted youth worker was released from the AmeriCorps program because he was unable to overcome the difficult circumstances of his own life and maintain his commitment to his work. Katy agonized over her difficulty in communicating with inner city black children. Ivan found himself dealing with his dual identity in new ways, while the group as a whole became frustrated in dealing with their overly controlling supervisor.

This perceptive documentary gives an illuminating examination of how racial divisions pervade American society, but at the same time the film offers hope that this divide can be bridged. The volunteers participated in diversity training that brought awareness of the special difficulties faced by young black males and forged new friendships along interracial lines. But, what was especially inspiring to see was the warmth and compassion shown by the volunteers. Even under difficult circumstances and with difficult children, their love for what they were doing shone through and demonstrated clearly that America’s young people do care about improving their communities. The 59 minute version was edited specifically for public television broadcast, but the longer version provides a richer and more complex account of the AmeriCorps experience