Matt Hartzell: Finding Purpose

Our next VM Story brings us to Matt who shares his story on how he made his way into VM!

Who are you?

Hi! My name is Matt Hartzell. I’m 27 years old. I was born in St. Paul, MN, raised in Westfield, NJ, but have lived in Annapolis, MD on-and-off again with my family for a little over five years now. I’m a big sports fan, love to golf in my spare time, but am not very good, and take any opportunity I can to go down to Kiawah Island, SC. I also consider myself somewhat of a movie/TV buff and have actually tried screenwriting in the past; also not very good haha. The most important thing to me is my family.

Why did you join AmeriCorps? How did you end up on this path?

The path I took to join AmeriCorps I consider to be a bit of winding one. First off, I’m five years out of college, not freshly so like some of my cohort. In college, I was an economics major, but my junior year I realized that none of the typical career paths for economics majors really excited me. So, I decided upon pursuing a career in sports management, which led me to graduate school and a few season-long positions with different MLB teams. Nevertheless, acquiring a full-time position in sports proved difficult for me, and my last job in sports was in 2018. Since then, I have bounced around job-wise, working in law, legislature, and retail. During this time, I reflected upon what I wanted to do with my life if not working in sports, and I thought about how one of my favorite parts about working in sports was helping players with their careers and receiving satisfaction from having one-on-one interactions with them and seeing their successes. As a result, I decided to pursue graduate school in school counseling and was all set to enroll for Fall 2020 until the pandemic hit. I think there’s a saying about “best laid plans” out there somewhere. I decided to defer graduate school part two until Fall 2021 and, after talking to a family friend, found AmeriCorps and Seeds 4 Success. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend a year than serving others, so I applied, and now I’m here!

What Site are you serving at and why?

I’m serving at Seeds 4 Success in Annapolis, which focuses on tutoring and mentoring underprivileged children in Anne Arundel County to intervene and break their cycles of poverty. I felt that I was a perfect fit for Seeds 4 Success given my intended graduate pursuits and the opportunity to learn about serving/working with children.

What are you most excited for during the next year?

Simply enough, I’m most excited about contributing to my site and helping them in their pursuit of better serving underprivileged children in Anne Arundel County.

What do you hope to learn/experience in the next year?

I hope to learn about how best to serve/work with children and gain some clarity on whether or not school counseling is indeed the field for me (I’m ever indifferent *hand to face emoji*).

What about community service gets you motivated?

I think community service gets me motivated because I know that my efforts are going towards a greater good. As you may have gleaned from the title of this article, I have had trouble finding meaning and purpose in my life, especially in work situations where I felt my contributions were meaningless.

Where does your inspiration to serve stem from? Why do you care about giving back?

I’m not entirely sure where my inspiration to serve stems from, but I often attribute it to the guilt I accrued from growing up in the Catholic church (haha) or from growing up rather privileged. To some degree, I care about serving for selfish reasons in order to suppress that feeling of guilt. But I also truly believe that giving back makes the world a better place (however miniscule that “better” may be) and that the world would be a better place if more people gave back, especially in today’s divisive political and social climate.

What are your goals for this service year and beyond?

My goals for the service year are to contribute to my site and accomplish the goals set forth for me. And, as of now, my plan beyond the service year is to pursue graduate school in school counseling.

Any further comments?

I just wanted to thank my cohort and the VM staff for making training as painless as possible (and, in fact, slightly enjoyable at times), and I’m looking forward to “getting things done” in 2021 (apologies for the cringy pun)!

AMERICORPS MEMBER	Matt Hartzell
SITE NAME	Seeds 4 Success
SITE WEB SITE	https://seeds4success.org/
YOUR SITE SOCIAL MEDIA (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) If available.	https://www.facebook.com/s4sannapolis https://twitter.com/S4S_Annapolis https://www.linkedin.com/company/seeds-4-success-inc
Title of Article/Blog	Matt Hartzell: Finding Purpose