VISTAs reflect on experiences in Glendive, Montana

Glendive said goodbye to VISTA members Danielle Leung and Katie Undem and welcomed new VISTAs Jessica Gerencser from Connecticut and Caroline Silver from Vermont at a Thursday noon potluck organized by Dawson County Health Communities Coalition.

Leung and Undem finished a year of working in Glendive. Leung set up a court watch program for the Dawson County Domestic Violence Program while Undem worked with the Farm-to-Table project. Gerencser and Silver will be working with Farm-to-Table.

By Cindy Mullet
Ranger-Review Staff Writer

Leung came to Glendive from California and was surprised at the difficulty she had getting around in Glendive without a car. She had traveled in developing countries, walking miles up and down hills without steps or sidewalks, and figured she was prepared for anything, but walking across the Bell Street Bridge in the middle of winter was really tough.

“I would never think I’d have so much trouble,” she said, adding, “I thought I was prepared for cold weather. I wasn’t.”

Her year in Glendive introduced her to some new clothing items: long johns and ear muffs, she added.

Adjusting to a slower pace of life was also a new experience. In the city people walk and drive fast to keep from getting run over. In Glendive, colleagues were always asking her to slow down, she said.

Being a new face in town was sometimes uncomfortable. She wasn’t used to standing out as different and was surprised when people stared at her. She was also surprised when people she did not know greeted her on the street.

“That was cool,” she said.

Working at DCDV and being a part of Healthy Communities gave her a network of people who introduced her to others and made her feel a part of the community. She learned something valuable from each person in the DCDV office, she noted.

Setting up the court watch program gave her the opportunity to connect with different organizations across the nation. She appreciated their cooperation and interest in helping her, but discovered that local input was the most valuable in setting up the program.

The favorite part of her job was meeting local judges. She appreciated how open they were to having people in their courtroom and discovered that going to court was a lot less scary than she thought it would be. “They (the judges) are really nice people,” she said.

The year has been a real adventure and preparing to leave has been hard. She flew back to California Friday and is in the process of interviewing for her next job.

“It has definitely been an amazing, amazing year. I wouldn’t change anything,” she said.

Undem didn’t face the same cultural challenges Leung did. She grew up on a ranch near Circle and has strong roots in eastern Montana, but even so, her VISTA year opened up some new worlds for her.

Learning about local food systems and sustainable agriculture through working at Farm-to-Table changed some of her ideas and opened her eyes to how important it is to begin developing these.

“It was a new perspective,” she said.

One of her biggest challenges was simply wrapping her head around the entire project. Farm-to-Table has so many aspects that she wasn’t always sure where she should put most of her energies.

“Everywhere you turn there are new things to work on,” she said. “It was hard to find direction.”

During her year in Glendive she was involved with marketing and producing Western Trails products, recruiting members for an agriculture marketing co-op, and developing a commercial kitchen.

Activities such as traveling to other communities, learning to know people in similar nonprofit organizations, working with legislators, communicating with funding agencies or competing in the Miss Montana pageant, often pushed her out of her comfort zone but also gave her new confidence in herself, she said.

The year flew by for her and sometimes she wonders how much she accomplished, but as she prepared to leave and began putting information together for the new VISTAs, she recognized that she is leaving stuff behind. Her work has made an impact on the program, she said.

This fall Undem will be going on to graduate school at Montana State University-Bozeman. She was recently engaged, and she and her fiancé are planning a June wedding. She is excited about starting grad school but also looking forward to returning to eastern Montana and pursuing a career in agriculture here.

“I would encourage any recent college grad to consider VISTA,” she said. “You find out a lot about yourself and the community.”