Volunteers in Service To America (VISTA)

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy envisioned a national service corps “to help provide urgently needed services in urban and rural poverty areas.” Less than two years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson realized Kennedy's dream by launching the “War on Poverty.” Johnson welcomed the first group of 20 VISTA volunteers saying, “Your pay will be low; the conditions of your labor often will be difficult. But you will have the satisfaction of leading a great national effort and you will have the ultimate reward which comes to those who serve their fellow man.”

VISTA, like Head Start and other lasting antipoverty programs, was created by The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 to serve the needs of the poorest Americans.

The first VISTA members started in January 1965, and by the end of the year more than 2,000 members were working in the Appalachian region, California migrant worker camps, and Hartford, Connecticut poor neighborhoods. By 1966, more than 3,600 VISTA members were serving the country. By the end of its first decade, VISTA had helped develop a range of projects around the United States, including block watch clubs, credit unions, agricultural cooperatives, community groups, and small businesses. Many of these entities still thrive today—including some of the first Head Start programs and Job Corps sites. As experience with poverty issues grew, VISTA also recruited lawyers, doctors, and architects to work in underserved areas.

In the 1970s, VISTA merged with Peace Corps and the National Senior Service programs, and the ACTION agency was born. As experience with poverty issues grew, VISTA recruited professionals trained in specific skills. Doctors helped develop new health care facilities, architects helped renovate and build low-income housing, and lawyers encouraged housing and health care reform. In the 1980s, the program placed a strong focus on literacy, substance abuse prevention and treatment, citizen participation, and community self-help.

VISTA Today

The 1990s saw a resurgence of national service. In 1990, President George H. Bush developed the Commission on National and Community Service. With the signing of the National Community Service Trust Act in 1993, President William Clinton expanded national service to create AmeriCorps. The programs merged to create AmeriCorps VISTA.

Throughout the 1990s, AmeriCorps VISTA continued the long tradition of starting new and innovative programs. VISTA members helped develop low-income housing cooperatives, created programs to help people transition from welfare to work, expanded Individual Development Accounts to help people save money, and provide constructive out-of-school activities for disadvantaged youth.

Throughout the decades, VISTA evolved to respond to local problems and the changing face of poverty. Today, under President George W. Bush, VISTA is larger, stronger, and more vital than it has ever been. Its 6,500 members—who serve at 1,200 projects nationwide—continue to address the root causes of poverty. They are developing new programs, raising funds, helping manage projects, and otherwise building the capacity of nonprofit organizations to become sustainable and of families to break the cycle of poverty. They also are setting the standard for volunteer mobilization and leading the charge to answer President’s Bush call for every American to become engaged in their community through volunteer service.