The personal stories of AmeriCorps*VISTA volunteers from the organization’s first four decades create a lasting legacy of service and sacrifice in communities across the nation.

Role: Editor, Copywriter, Art Director

Industry: Government

Objective: Compile a commemorative book featuring the stories of dozens of VISTAs over its 40-year history.

Challenge: The sad truth of the matter is that a lot of people can’t write and this becomes a problem when you collect more than 20 stories for an “in-their-own-words” style book. The stories needed to be edited for length, uniformity, tone, and most of all coherence.

Approach: Brute force attack. Today I would have experimented with A.I., but in 2005 the only option was to roll up the sleeves, pop on the headphones and get to work.

Results: Probably one of my favorite projects ever. I got to interview a sitting member of Congress, interview and ghostwrite a story for a state-level Secretary of State, and learn a ton of personal history from the preceding 40 years. The client was so pleased that we were also awarded additional work to recruit volunteers to help with Hurricane Katrina cleanup.