Kitsap Community Resources AmeriCorps’ program has contracted with the city of Bremerton and Kitsap County to provide much needed manpower to support local parks and maintain miles of sidewalks of city streets through its Community Service Worker (CSW) program.

 

 

The CSW program allows those convicted of minor offenses to avoid fines or jail time by giving back to their community through local community service projects.  When you consider the cost of housing someone in jail and the costs of paying for upkeep to local parks and public areas, the city saves about $350,000 per year and the county achieves savings of about $180,000 each year.

 

 

Once in the program, CSW participants have the opportunity to learn about resources that KCR offers, such as the DRIVE program, which can help them avoid future tickets by getting their driver’s license reinstated through a negotiated payment plan. 

 

 

Since AmeriCorps members supervise the program, participants learn from them the value of service and the satisfaction that helping others can bring.

 

 

One such participant, Chris Gantz, has since volunteered over 1000 hours above and beyond his original stint in the CSW program to help rid the local area of graffiti.  As a young person who was often guilty of spreading graffiti, he now wants to give back and donates his time to repainting buildings that have been vandalized.
 
  
CSW Participants and AmeriCorps volunteers work at Blueberry Park in Bremerton to ready it for a spring opening.