My name is Peter Ostroske and I am an AmeriCorps*NCCC member from the Capital Region. I was raised in New Orleans, Louisiana by two parents who believed a strong community is the foundation for a strong character. My father, a lifelong United Way employee, had a particular passion for community service. As I grew older, I was given community service hours for such petty crimes as disobedience and disrespect. And so I went out into my community, bumping around from one organization to another - food banks, homeless shelters, and underfunded hospitals. But the people I helped seemed so distant from my own reality. I am not hungry and I am not poor and I have no real disadvantages to speak of. My empathy continued to dwindle and I became more and more frustrated with the self-serving conviction that replaced it. Neither reactions seemed to fit. And so I joined AmeriCorps*NCCC with the intent of reshaping my life perspective.

As fortune would have it, this defining moment came a month early, catching me completely off guard. With the onset of Hurricane Katrina, my family congregated at our home in Mid-City New Orleans, a neighborhood located right in between the Mississippi River and Lake Ponchatrain. For reasons I can't even remember, we decided to ride out the storm. In two days time, I watched the water seep through the cracks, between the windows and walls and the doors and the floors, inundating the first floor of my home and destroying my family's things. After four hazy days, we evacuated by boat to St. Charles Ave and began walking westward along a span of unaffected Levee. Three hours later we were picked up by a store owner bound for Metairie and dropped off at National Guard headquarters. After a short stay, we secured four places in the back of a pickup truck destined for Baton Rouge, where my family settled for the next month. During this time, I had serious doubts about my future enrollment in the AmeriCorps*NCCC program. Why move all the way Washington, DC, when my own family is in need? AmeriCorps seemed like a selfish option but after two weeks of debate, I decided I didn't want to be a passive victim.

And so a month after the hurricane, I was at the AmeriCorps*NCCC campus in Anacostia, DC, surrounded by one hundred and twenty new corps members. I thought it would be a tough transition but the NCCC staff and team leaders are total service fanatics, creating a cohesive team-based atmosphere that breeds optimism and enthusiasm. It was as if time started again only this time I was a part of a much larger family, under the same roof and of the same mind. And so it began - orientation, team assignments, and lastly project assignments. My team's project assignment seemed as unlikely an event as the hurricane itself: Disaster Relief - New Orleans, Louisiana. We were to be working with the American Red Cross in the Bulk Distribution sector, handing out cleaning supplies, food and baby supplies. I wasn't sure what to expect other than what my parents had told me - brown instead of green grass, military humvees instead of street cars, and a pile of rumble marking a home owners' return. Two days after our assignment we arrived on site, a school converted distribution center no more than ten blocks from my home. We were put straight to work, hauling goods, cutting boxes, stocking tables, or handing out product. I spent the first week hiding in the back, working toward a degree in box cutting and stacking. It was my first project and I wasn't going to up and drop that self-serving perspective that had gotten me this far. On the start of week two, however, I was pushed past table stocking straight to the front line. Now I was face to face with the client. But this time, they didn't seem so distant. These people were my neighbors, my middle school math teacher, my high school soccer coach, my friends parents, and even my own friends. They had lost a lot, their cars, their homes, and often times their jobs. But what my parents forgot to mention was that these people hadn't lost their identity. They were the same good-natured group that I had known two months earlier. The only thing that had changed was the circumstance in which they found themselves: poor and hungry. To see these people on the receiving end of charity broke my heart but in the process it sparked a fresh respect for the power of community service. Was it the act of helping my own community that refashioned my outlook on service? That's only a half truth.

The other half belongs to AmeriCorps*NCCC. Modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s and the U.S. military, The mission of AmeriCorps*NCCC is to strengthen communities and develop leaders through direct team-based national and community service. While serving on Disaster Relief, my team provided me with a network of unwavering support and devotion that radiated so brightly that it shined upon the entire city of New Orleans. These people are AmeriCorps*NCCC volunteers from all over the nation, from California to New York, coming together to serve New Orleans today and your hometown tomorrow. And this is just one testimony out of 1000 AmeriCorps*NCCC corps members serving this year. Or how about 1 out of the 12,000 that have served since the induction of the program? Or how about the hundreds of thousands of people in need that have been directly influenced by an AmeriCorps*NCCC member to date. It is a domino effect - a fusion of intangibles that cannot be measured or quantified by a cost/benefit analysis. I am only 23 years old and I can not imagine my life without AmeriCorps*NCCC. As I speak, AmeriCorps*NCCC continues to help rebuild the lives of people nationwide and in doing has allowed me to rebuild me own.

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