The VISTA Project

Jen McKenzie joined Transform Mid-Atlantic in 2012 after completing her master’s degree. Seeking a meaningful way to apply her passions outside of academia, she stepped into her VISTA project within the Community Arts Partnership Office at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Her project focused on building a sustainable bridge between the college campus and the surrounding Baltimore community. Specifically, Jen spearheaded a service-learning initiative that paired MICA undergraduate students with local host sites—ranging from schools and rehab centers to hospitals and detention centers—to provide structured art and art therapy programming. Driven by a core conviction that every student deserves the opportunity to engage with art to build self-confidence and critical thinking skills, Jen coordinated the curriculum development and logistical matching for 40 to 50 student volunteers each semester.

The Challenge
While MICA possessed a wealth of artistic and educational resources, systemic operational silos prevented these resources from reaching local, under-resourced youth. Baltimore City Public High Schools faced immense funding and resource restrictions, leaving many without active visual arts or college-readiness programming. Furthermore, navigating these partnerships required high-level coordination; MICA undergrads as young as 19 were often intimidated by the prospect of teaching high schoolers or working with highly vulnerable populations without structured mentorship. The operational hurdle was to build a sustainable network from scratch that could handle logistics, free transportation, individual lesson planning, and cross-institutional alignment to ensure these programs directly supported the future independence of the youth involved.

The Solution
Jen directly resolved these bottlenecks by building out a robust infrastructure for three after-school college access art clubs hosted both on MICA's campus and at local partner schools, including Western High School. She established a streamlined system using Baltimore City S-Cards so students could travel to campus via light rail for free. To guide the student instructors, Jen leveraged her academic background in ethnography and culture to help them design specialized, semester-long portfolios and curricula covering everything from basic Photoshop and fibers to life drawing and portfolio preservation.

Jen also actively sought out cross-sector partnerships, collaborating with fellow VISTAs at Morgan State University, Coppin State University, and Stevenson University to bring admissions and portfolio preparation talks directly to the art club participants. Beyond the classroom, Jen was hands-on in capacity building, coordinating and physically helping to paint a vibrant, multifaceted nature mural designed alongside families and students to transform a previously blank beige wall inside a local food bank facility into a welcoming community space

The Legacy
Jen's strategic capacity-building efforts left a permanent blueprint for community-aligned arts education at MICA. Her college access art clubs successfully integrated students from five different city high schools, where an estimated 70% or more of the student body qualified for free or reduced lunches. End-of-semester data demonstrated the long-term impact of the infrastructure she built: 85% of attending students reported feeling better prepared to continue their education, and participants were 30% more likely to express an interest in pursuing higher education. The permanent pipeline she established culminated in four high school students successfully securing acceptance into collegiate art or architecture programs during MICA's Portfolio Day.

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Life After VISTA

Her transformative VISTA year directly paved the way for Jen to receive an assistant instructor position and a full scholarship to a PhD program in ethnomusicology at Indiana University. Her academic journey also took her abroad to Spain, where she served as an English Language Instructor at the Universidad de Sevilla. Upon returning to Baltimore, her deep belief in national service networks led her back to the VISTA world. She joined the Maryland Out of School Time (MOST) Network, serving first as an AmeriCorps VISTA Leader from 2018 to 2019, and subsequently elevating her impact as a VISTA Program Associate through September 2020. Across more than two years with the network, she managed a community of 25 to 30 VISTA members statewide, coordinating tech support, tracking monthly metrics, and running professional development trainings.

Jen later transitioned into the literacy non-profit space in the Washington D.C.-Baltimore area, serving as the Volunteer and Partnership Manager for Everybody Wins DC. In this role, she managed critical cross-sector relationships between corporate volunteer mentors and public school reading programs. Deeply rooted in her local community, she also stepped into a civic role as the Volunteer and Events Coordinator for the Greater Remington Improvement Association Inc. in Baltimore.

Today, Jen serves as the Partner Engagement Coordinator for Fusion Partnerships in Baltimore, a fiscal sponsor supporting over 120 grassroots social justice and equity initiatives. Managing a portfolio of 30 distinct grassroots organizations—ranging from violence prevention programs to youth aviation training—Jen applies the exact cultural competency, communication, and partner relationship management frameworks she developed during her initial VISTA year. By handling administrative, financial, and technical support for these organizations, she continues her lifelong commitment to empowering others to maximize their community impact.