Denise Lavoie, VISTA Team Leader

Denise moved to Fairbanks from Seattle, where she has had a previous year of VISTA experience, as well as one year of AmeriCorps direct service which ended during the initial 2020 COVID lockdown. Having earned an undergraduate degree in liberal arts from Harvard University's nighttime program, as well as a JD from the City University of New York School of Law, she is now eager to pass on the knowledge she has gained (both from her formal education as well as her service years) to a new cohort of service members. Fairbanks lured her not only on the strength of its program, but the prospect of winter ice skating and experiencing a white holiday season for the first time in many, many years!

​Mike Sanders is the Crisis Now Coordinator for the City of Fairbanks and has overseen the local AmeriCorps VISTA program since January 2019. Mike is a certified Project Management Professional with a PhD in Public Policy Administration. Mike is married and the father of two sons.

Kenzley Defler is the ultimate professional! She excelled in every aspect of the VISTA Leader position. She built upon previous VISTA Leaders’ work and blazed a path for future VISTA Leaders. Kenzley successfully advocated for two expansions to the program resulting in the program growing to 16 full year VISTA positions, 14 Summer Associates, and the Team Leader position. I don’t think the VISTA program has ever been this large in Fairbanks and it’s due to Kenzley’s efforts. Growing the program was just a small part of what Kenzley did. Her main contribution was the impeccable leadership she gave to the VISTAs. She was a mentor, fierce advocate, active listener, and a role model to the VISTAs. Everybody respected and appreciated Kenzley for her leadership. Under her leadership the VISTA team became one of the most cohesive, drama free, and productive VISTA year groups I have ever seen. Kenzley is amazing and I am excited to see what her future holds!

It is amazing what Ashton can accomplish in just 18 months! Before Ashton started, I had serious concerns about the VISTA program. The City had just taken over the sponsorship and at the same time AmeriCorps was going through a significant restructuring.  Because the sponsorship had changed, we had to recruit for all 11 full year VISTA positions and the 18 Summer Associate positions. The Summer Associate recruitment began about a week after Ashton started as the VISTA Leader and our recruitment period was only two weeks long. To make matters even more challenging, our local program didn’t have a website or dedicated social media presence yet. Within a few weeks of accepting the VISTA Leader position, Ashton created the AmeriCorps VISTA of Fairbanks website and social media pages, established our local VISTA office, and recruited for 14 of the 18 Summer Associate positions. After those first couple weeks, I no longer worried about our VISTA program.
 
Ashton continued to be impressive throughout her term and has many accomplishments, but to me the biggest impact I saw was from her leadership skills. Ashton led 35 VISTA Members during her time as the VISTA Leader. She was fiercely protective of the VISTAs and the VISTA program. She genuinely cared for the VISTAs and they respected her more for it. She served as a mentor and guided the VISTAs in their projects. She pushed them to achieve more than they thought possible for both their projects and themselves. Sometimes her influence was subtle, like passing along a resource or making a suggestion, but if the VISTA needed more direct guidance Ashton didn’t shy away from it. She taught every VISTA to advocate for themselves and their projects. Ashton helped many VISTAs conquer their fear of public speaking. I can’t even begin to count the number of times Ashton and the VISTAs were on the radio, TV or front page of the paper promoting VISTA projects.
 
Ashton is equally awesome away from work. She told me early in her term she wanted to continue to work with Non Profits, but that she wanted to live in Hawaii. This wasn’t just some dream to Ashton. She started making solid plans to accomplish her personal goal several months ago. She explored every avenue she thought that she might be interested in. At one point she was looking into forest ranger jobs as a next step. For one of the particular forest ranger jobs she looked into she had to be able to operate a four wheeler and be proficient with a handgun. At the time Ashton hadn’t had much experience with either, but she picked up both quickly. Within one afternoon she was comfortably riding four wheelers and a dirt bike on some hilly trails in the woods. Ashton quickly discovered she was a natural with a pistol. She is a safe and skilled shooter that truly enjoys the sport. It’s not important that she is a quick learner, although she is. What is important about Ashton is she is fearless, fair, motivated, and open minded. It has been a real privilege to get to know Ashton and I’m excited to see what her future holds.” 

- Mike Sanders, VISTA Program Director