Meghan Delaney and Ashton Hart: VolunteerNow AmeriCorps

Meghan Delaney quit her bank job, packed up her car, drove to Colorado, built hiking trails, and lived in a tent – for five months. Based in Durango, Colo. as a member of the Conservation Corps, Delaney said AmeriCorps saved her future. 

She is now half of the dynamic AmeriCorps duo based at VolunteerNow, working alongside fellow member Ashton Hart, who volunteered for the American Red Cross following the tornado and storms in December 2015. He said he received an email about AmeriCorps the second day of his volunteer work with the Red Cross. 

Both Meghan and Ashton started at VolunteerNow in January 2016 and will serve with the organization for 10 months.

“I was in the [December] storm, and wanted to make a difference and give back,” Hart said. “I had no idea what I was getting into when I signed up for AmeriCorps. Volunteering just feels like the right thing to do.”

Delaney added that she “wanted a job with purpose, and this is like a dream come true.”

AmeriCorps, a national service organization, engages adults in intensive community service work with the goal of helping others and meeting critical needs in the community. There are several programs within the AmeriCorps umbrella, and Delaney and Hart will focus on disaster preparedness in North Texas. While serving with VolunteerNow, the two will educate the community on general readiness, each with individualized projects based on their interests. 

While they were not completely familiar with AmeriCorps or disaster preparedness, both welcomed the opportunity to improve their community. Delaney said she comes from a family full of nurses and former military, so giving back is a quality near and dear to her. She discovered Conservation Corps after earning a degree in environmental science and struggling to find a job after graduation. Delaney worked in a bank for more than a year before chasing her love of the outdoors and volunteering. 

She built hiking trails in Colorado while living out of her tent and car, and said hikers were thankful for her and her crew’s commitment to the public lands and conservation. Those five months with the Conservation Corps was her first experience with intensive community service. 

“I saw how you can really make an impact with an organization that believes in what you’re doing,” Delaney said. “Right now we’re learning and sharing the ins and outs of what it takes to get a community involved. Serving and helping others is a quality that runs thick in my blood.” 

Hart is of a similar mindset. A musician, he performed in hospitals around Dallas, including UT Southwestern and Zale-Lipshy, as well as at mental health institutions. This was all volunteer work. 

“I like how [volunteering] makes me feel and how it makes others feel. It’s about setting aside yourself and being selfless,” he said. 

Hart’s volunteer background lends itself to an interest in incorporating mental health advocacy into his disaster preparedness AmeriCorps project. Hart said his ideas include having social workers be part of disaster readiness, giving talks about mental health to kids and adults, and sharing referrals for therapists and psychologists. While volunteering with the Red Cross, Hart said he worked with a 10-year-old diagnosed with schizophrenia for three days, as many volunteers did not understand how to assist the young boy.

“Just the shock value of what disasters can do to you, I think as much clarity as you can receive beforehand would be wonderful to see more of in readiness,” Hart said. 

The pair will be guided and mentored by Lisa Tatum, VolunteerNow’s disaster preparedness guru who is an AmeriCorps alumna and has been recognized by the White House for her service. She has responded to many natural disasters and continues to lead North Texas in disaster readiness. Hart said that listening to and working with Lisa inspires him to go out and do more in the community. 

Delaney added that changing the world comes one person at a time.

“People say ‘oh it’s just me,’ but it really is one person influencing others, one person at a time,” she said. “Volunteers are the biggest stepping stone to creating change.”