Every weekday at 6:30 a.m., University graduate student Miranda Byrd joins a car pool traveling from Corvallis to Eugene in order to attend school and work. And although the commute is a pain, she said, the ability to study and work in a rewarding field makes it all worth the trouble.
Byrd is one of five graduate students receiving funding from a federal grant that provides students with support while they work on local community development planning projects.
After a stint in the private sector working for an advertising agency, Byrd said she found that work unfulfilling and decided to enter the field of community development.
“I didn’t feel like I was contributing to society,” she said. “I wanted my path to kind of change direction.”
Now, Byrd is earning her master’s in community and regional planning and is working between 12 to 20 hours a week for HIV Alliance, a local non-profit HIV/AIDS support and education agency.
The aim of the $150,000 U.S. Housing and Urban Development Fellow Placement grant is to encourage students to seek careers in the public or non-profit sectors, said Megan Smith, managing director of the University Community Service Center.
The grant partially compensates students for their tuition and provides $9,000 annually for their part-time work. Students work with two organizations for about nine months during the two-year life of the grant, according to a University press release.
Smith said the grant provides students with financial support while giving them real-world community-building experience and serving the public.
She said the support allows students to complete their degrees without accruing as much debt in hopes they won’t need to find higher-paying jobs in the private sector later in life.
“It helps keep the sort of cadre of professionals that are interested in working in the public or non-profit sector,” she said.
HIV Alliance Development Director Michele Erickson said the agency depends on volunteers and interns like Byrd to provide vital work the agency can’t always afford.
“Otherwise it’s a need that would probably go unfilled,” she said. “The need for service is really great in our community.”
Byrd’s main project at the HIV Alliance has been to create a speaker’s bureau for representatives from the agency to give presentations to community organizations, including schools, businesses and hospitals. The presentations are intended to educate the public about HIV/AIDS issues, such as local and global trends and current legislation, she added.
“(The HIV Alliance) is a really unique organization,” she said.
Erickson said working for the non-profit or public sectors provides valuable experience for anyone interested in serving their community. She said while it is not difficult to find people willing to work in the often low-paying field, a lot of turnover exists because of financial and stress-related reasons.
“There are lots of people who want to do this sort of work,” she said, adding that some people working for the public, including herself, choose to work in the private sector until they become financially stable and then later return to community work.
She said one of the most rewarding aspects of working in the field is observing the people who receive help.
“I think that seeing the people they serve makes an impression on them for life,” she said.
Along with the HIV Alliance, the Lane County Community and Economic Development Program, the Rural Development Initiative and the Oregon Homeless and Runaway Youth Coalition all receive support from students funded through the grant, according to the release.
Byrd said she hopes to stay in the public sector once she completes her degree and plans to work with immigrants and refugees, helping them to find affordable housing and benefit from economic development. After meeting her husband, who is an immigrant, while working for the Peace Corps in Romania four years ago, Byrd said she wants to focus on the international community.
“I have this eye on the international world,” she said.