For the past 20 years, Ohio University’s COMCorps program has provided opportunities for students and graduates to build their resumes while improving the health and wellness of Southeast Ohio through a year of service that enhances lives and gives back to the local community.
For Bryce Lemaster, BSH ’19, the year she spent after graduation as a COMCorps member found her on the frontlines of Athens County’s COVID-19 response, reaffirmed her commitment to a career in community and public health, and landed her a full-time position with the local health department.
“My COMCorps year was a great year of learning and growth,” said Lemaster, who graduated from OHIO’s College of Health Sciences and Professions in May 2019. “Right out of college, I think sometimes people are like, ‘Is this career field really what I intended it to be?’ For me, that proved true, and I was really glad to have had that experience and that learning time to make sure that this is where I wanted to be.”
Housed within the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine’s Community Health Programs, COMCorps places service members in government agencies, school districts and nonprofits in Athens County for a year devoted to creating and implementing projects and programs that promote health and wellness. COMCorps is a component of AmeriCorps, often referred to as the “domestic Peace Corps,” whose network of local, state and national service programs address critical needs in U.S. communities.
“Our COMCorps members get to experience Athens County and the communities outside of the University,” explained Eric Long, the program’s manager. “And that's usually the biggest takeaway at the end of the year. They feel like they are a community member, being able to connect and serve and give back to the community and the University that gave them a four-year experience.”
A four-year experience for many, but for Lemaster, the commitment to giving back to her community is in return for many more than four years.
A lifelong resident of Southeast Ohio, Lemaster’s COMCorps experience began in August 2019 when she was placed with the Athens City-County Health Department as a health educator. In that role, she worked with the Ohio Department of Health’s Creating Healthy Communities (CHC) program, created to prevent and reduce chronic disease statewide by implementing sustainable, evidence-based strategies the promote healthy eating and active living. Some of the work Lemaster did through that program included collaborating with local employers to make healthier food options and physical activity available to employees and launching a Book-a-Bike program through the Athens County Public Libraries.
Lemaster’s COMCorps experience took a sharp turn during the second half of her placement at the health department when she was transitioned into a COVID-19 pandemic response role.
“When we first transitioned into our incident command structure, we reassigned roles to best fit what the needs were for the pandemic,” Lemaster said, noting that her role involved helping with COVID-19 case investigations, performing contact tracing and learning about the coronavirus behind this public health crisis. “We were doing a lot of policy and planning, lining up PPE and getting initial information to make the best-informed decisions about what we were going to do and how we were going to tackle this.”
Much of that work continues today as the Athens City-County Health Department responds to the few positive cases being reported almost daily, re-evaluates its policies and remains prepared for a possible surge in cases.
“This time is really mentally exhausting for everybody,” Lemaster said. “This is a situation that we haven’t encountered before, so it’s a lot of time and energy for us here at the health department and people out in the community to critically think about all of the decisions they’re making every day.”
Lemaster admits the work can be draining, but the supportive staff at the health department and the rewarding nature of the work more than makes up for the long hours and high pressure of their mission—a mission that is now a full-time mission for her.
Upon completing her COMCorps term in June, the Athens City-County Health Department asked Lemaster to join its staff as a full-time contact tracer, which involves not only outreach to those who may have been exposed to an individual who has tested positive for COVID-19 but also support for those who are in quarantine.
“The biggest rewards for me are working with the families to help them navigate all the challenges that come with COVID,” Lemaster said. “It’s really nice to be able to be that person that someone else looks toward for some guidance. We talk with everybody that we have in quarantine every day to make sure they have things they need at home, to make sure they can have some questioned answered and be heard, and to have some support. I feel very valued by my community in this role.”
It’s a role that Lemaster has been preparing for most of her life.
“Growing up, people always ask you, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up,’” Lemaster said. “And I used to tell people, ‘I want to be my mom.’ My mom happens to be a nurse.”
Lemaster has fond childhood memories of wrapping her mother’s arm in bandages and listening to her heartbeat with her mother’s stethoscope. As a student at Alexander High School, she had the opportunity to take classes at OHIO’s Athens Campus, where she explored the different courses of study in the College of Health Sciences and Professions. It was a Public Health 101 course taught by Heather Harmon that really piqued her interest and led her to enroll in the college’s Community and Public Health Program.
As an undergraduate, Lemaster supplemented her studies with opportunities to put theory into practice while giving back to her community. She worked at Hocking Valley Bank, managing its worksite wellness program, and volunteered with Live Healthy Appalachia, a nonprofit dedicated to the health and wellness of the Appalachian region. At Live Healthy Appalachia, Lemaster served as an educator with Live Healthy Kids, a 22-week nutrition education program for second-graders that exposes them to healthy, whole foods, teaches them how to prepare those foods, and engages them in physical activity.
While education and exposure to healthier food choices are a key component of Live Healthy Kids, Lemaster also noted the community-building aspect of the program as the children bring what they’ve learned back to their homes.
“This is a way for families to gather around cooking and food and create positive food experiences,” she said.
Lemaster continues to volunteer with Live Healthy Appalachia and earlier this year joined the board of Community Food Initiatives, a nonprofit committed to making healthy, local food accessible to all.
“There are always those organizations that come into your classroom or professors that point you in those directions,” Lemaster said of the opportunities she had to volunteer as a student, to engage in hands-on career development before graduation and to gain the experience and skills that landed her a job at a time when those skills are needed more than ever.
As COMCorps begin its 21st year, its mission, too, is needed more than ever.
“Our logic model is community health and wellness, and we found out during the pandemic that our program was even more important in providing essential services where our members were distributing food and health supplies and those basic necessities throughout the county,” said Long. “Bryce was exemplary. She jumped right into service. She’s from Athens County, so she knew the demographic and the populations that she was serving—and she wanted to serve, here in her home community.”