November 7, 2012 - Rocky Mountain Youth Corps’ has responded to Hurricane Sandy by sending a team of seven AmeriCorps Members to New York City to provide disaster assistance.

RMYC Corpsmembers will be staffing an emergency shelter at FDR High School in Brooklyn New York. The shelter is accommodating evacuees from Hurricane Sandy and the Nor’easter Storm. The deployment is scheduled to last a minimum of 30 days.

Carl Colonius, RMYC’s Executive Director said he’s proud of the Corps’ capacity to respond. “We signed an agreement with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) earlier this year, and have prepared our crews for the opportunity to serve other communities. Our local partners, like the Carson National Forest, were very flexible in allowing us to postpone wildfire prevention projects and send our crews out east. This work is such a great chance for local crews to help in another part of country.”

Rocky Mountain Youth Corps is an AmeriCorps grant recipient, part of the National Service movement administered by the New Mexico Commission for Community Volunteerism and funded by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). CNCS estimates that approximately 936 national service members have been deployed to seven states affected by Hurricane Sandy, with 855 additional individuals on standby for assignments in the hardest-hit areas. National service members are assisting with shelter operations, call centers, debris removal, and mass care in response to Hurricane Sandy in Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and West Virginia.

Fully trained and ready, this is the second FEMA deployment of Rocky Mountain Youth Corps in the past three months. In August and September 2012, RMYC was deployed to the New Orleans area to assist in shelter operations associated with Hurricane Isaac. RMYC is the only New Mexico AmeriCorps program to be used in FEMA’s disaster response plan as far this year.

For more information about this project, visit RMYC at 1203 King Drive Taos, NM or on the web at www.youthcorps.org

Contact: Carl Colonius
575 751-1420 ex 22
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