LEWISTON – Rachel Brophy of Norway will be joining the KIDS Consortium staff as an AmeriCorps VISTA member for 2006-07.

She is part of a larger statewide team of AmeriCorps VISTA members organized by Communities for Children and Youth, a statewide initiative of the Maine Children’s Cabinet working to promote positive child and youth development.

Brophy will be working with KIDS Consortium staff on several projects related to service-learning in K-12 schools in Maine. Service-learning is a teaching strategy that connects classroom academics with community service projects.

Brophy will focus on increasing the number and quality of service-learning projects related to health, particularly substance abuse prevention, nutrition and exercise, and anti-bullying projects, and improving the environment. In addition, she will assist with fundraising efforts and will reach out to local community organizations and interested school districts with populations of children and youth at increased risk of poverty to encourage partnerships around service-learning projects.

Brophy graduated from Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in 2002 and is a 2006 graduate of College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., where she majored in history with a concentration in peace and conflict studies.