Bringing AmeriCorps NCCC to Oregon

The AmeriCorps NCCC blog continues with its guest bloggers during the month of January.

Today's post comes from Amy, an AmeriCorps NCCC Alum, who currently serves as the Volunteer and Outreach Coordinator for the Johnson Creek Watershed Council.

Amy is pictured here during a Veteran's Day Parade (second from left)

As a NCCC Class XII Alum (Charleston, SC campus), I understand the incredible impact and quality of work an AmeriCorps NCCC team can bring to an organization. I currently run the volunteer program at a small place-based environmental nonprofit called the Johnson Creek Watershed Council in Portland. Thoughts of bringing a team to Oregon had stayed with me since I graduated from the program in 2006. I said to myself, “Well go for it then!”

After building a new partnership with the Salvation Army’s Camp Kuratli, I had all the pieces in place for a successful host application and NCCC team Green 2 arrived on January 10, 2012.

Looking back at how rewarding and educational my NCCC experience was, I knew that bringing a team here to help my organization’s mission would also enable me to help facilitate this learning process for Green 2.

AmeriCorps NCCC helped shape my career – it affirmed my intense interest in community service and exposed me to the kinds of professions I could do to continue working with other volunteers. The AmeriCorps NCCC experience is a rich training ground for Volunteer Coordinators. It gave me many of the insights and skills I use in my career today, communicating and working with volunteers.

Invasive species removal and native tree and shrub planting (over 20,000) is the name of the game for Green 2 while they’re in Oregon. I hope I can help them reflect internally on this project and the job we’ve given them. It might inspire them to pursue professions in Natural Resource Management or Volunteer Coordination – like me.

Thank you Green 2 and AmeriCorps NCCC!

~Amy

Raising the Bar: Not only to serve but to lead

The NCCC Blog continues its month of guest bloggers. Today's guest blogger is Taft, 25, from Atlanta, GA, who is a new team leader at the Atlantic Region campus.

Imagine that a NCCC team has helped your community during a natural disaster. You then join NCCC and, within the first two weeks of NCCC training, you meet and serve alongside the President of the United States.

I have eagerly anticipated the day I could serve as a Member in the AmeriCorps NCCC. I feel a deep debt of gratitude to NCCC for helping my fire department find the strength and capability to complete the daunting task of creating a fire buffer around Crown King, Arizona in 2007.

On Monday January 16, the national Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, I found myself standing behind President Obama wearing an NCCC uniform. Only a week and a half into NCCC training, and I’ve already raised the bar for the proudest day of my life!

Monday morning was a whirlwind of waiting, being moved around, being shuffled in and out of crowds and going through security checkpoints. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but I found myself standing in front of a crowd of volunteers with fellow NCCC Members Casey and Toby.

We stood along a wall while speakers took turns addressing the crowd. I had been told that the President was going to speak, and I knew that a photo opportunity was planned, but nothing could have prepared me for the moment he stepped into the room with his family and shook our hands one by one. He then stood ten feet directly in front of me and delivered a speech that I will never forget.

“There isn’t anyone who can’t serve … nobody who can’t help somebody else,” said President Obama.

Those words will follow me for as long as I live.

There is a phrase that I have heard repeatedly from several facilitators during the NCCC training. The facilitators keep saying, “I can’t do what you (NCCC Members) do.”

Nonsense.

It is my new ambition to spend my life helping people find that strength just like NCCC helped me find it in the Bradshaw Mountains of Arizona. I will carry this commitment with me this year and beyond. Each of us is engaged in a struggle for life. All of us are strong. Everyone has the capacity not only to serve, but to lead.

~Taft

NCCC Atlantic Region Class 18 Team Leaders (L to R: Patrick, Casey, Brooke, Tiffancy, Taft, Toby)

You too can serve and lead. NCCC is currently accepting Team Leader applications until March 1, 2012 for the fall 2012. Consider applying as a Team Leader. For more information about applying for a Team Leader position go here

Top Ten Things I Miss From AmeriCorps NCCC

The NCCC Blog will be hosting guest bloggers during the month of January, 2012. We will be back with a brand new team blog in February.



Today’s guest blogger is Heather, who was a corps member of AmeriCorps Class XVI at the Southwest Region Campus in Denver, CO. She currently resides in Maine where she spends most of her time skiing and baking.



Top Ten Things I Miss From AmeriCorps NCCC

1. Buying food in bulk from Sam’s Club and Costco

2. Transition week antics

3. Living in Denver


4. Hearing ‘Who Dat’ everywhere in New Orleans











5. Operating heavy machinery like a pro

6. Hiking giant mountains

7. Unusual and interesting daily projects

8. Being able to say, “oh yeah, I’ve been there!”

9. ISP at the New Orlean’s Zoo

10. My family

~Heather




Heather serves as a member of the AmeriCorps NCCC Alumni Leadership Council. The AmeriCorps NCCC Alumni Leadership Council was recently established to increase NCCC's alumni engagement. The council currently consists of 11 members including 2 alums representing each region and 1 Chair. Alums are currently spear-heading committees related to new member recruitment, building relationships with project sponsors, fundraising, national days of service days, and 20th Anniversary planning. For more information or to become involved as a regional rep, please contact ncccalums@gmail.com.

The NCCC Blog will be hosting guest bloggers during the month of January, 2012. We will be back with a brand new team blog in February.

Today’s guest blogger is Joe, an AmeriCorps NCCC Alum. He served as a Corps Members in Class XVI and a Team Leader in Class XVII, both at the Southwest Region campus in Denver, Colorado. Joe currently serves as the Development Officer-Annual Giving for the Edmundite Missions, headquartered in Selma, Alabama and serving rural Alabama and New Orleans, LA (http://www.edmunditemissions.org/).

Selma Water tower

Working at a non-profit in rural Alabama creates a Christmas season that even Santa himself would find stressful. Our direct mail campaign is going at full force, our non-stop food kitchen is serving upwards of 500 meals every single day, parties are being thrown for our senior adults and kids, and, all the while, our meals on wheels program is still going and growing and, as the head of the Donor Relations Department, plans must be made for the New Year and meetings must be kept with my boss.

Mass delivery of groceries to rural poor families

It’s easy to begin fearing for the hair that’s left on my head when this stress combines with the stress we all find when preparing for the holidays. However, I never wonder if I CAN accomplish all the tasks in front of me every day. I know I can get all these things done because of the skills I learned during two years of service with AmeriCorps*NCCC.

More important than the skills I learned that I use every day to help the Edmundite Missions, AmeriCorps*NCCC taught me to become part of a community in order to learn how to help.

People usually don't believe that this kind of poverty is in the U.S. I work with it everyday
The fact that 56% of the children in Selma, Alabama live in poverty is startling enough for anyone to want to help, but NCCC prepared me to learn names and faces and search for answers in the community.

The fact that more than 65% of all residents in Dallas County are food insecure (not sure where their next meal is coming from) could easily overwhelm anyone looking to help a community from the outside.

This is a picture of me with an elderly lady that receives our assistance in every way we offer it, including our Bosco meals on wheels. We also provide her with utility assistance and clothing. I got out of the office one day to help with the delivery and her gratitude nearly brought me to tears. She wouldn't stop hugging me and telling me that without us, she wouldn't make it. This picture means a lot to me.

But when you view a community the way the NCCC experience allows, it becomes in a big way your community. It’s not about feeding these poor people; it’s about feeding my neighbors. I love my job and I love helping the people of rural Alabama through fundraising and the dozen other tasks I do every day. And when I’m seeing the results of all that “paper pushing”, I feel like that "A" should still be proudly displayed on my sleeve.

I owe AmeriCorps NCCC so much. I am proud to have been selected to serve as a Southern Region representative to the AmeriCorps NCCC Alumni Leadership Council. Through the next few months, I look forward to working hard with the rest of the LC to connect the fantastic alumni across the nation to the program we all love and the communities that program serves. As a proud alumnus, I must say it is truly a great time to be a member of the NCCC family!

~Joe

Joe serves as a member of the AmeriCorps NCCC Alumni Leadership Council. The AmeriCorps NCCC Alumni Leadership Council was recently established to increase NCCC's alumni engagement. The council currently consists of 11 members including 2 alums representing each region and 1 Chair. Alums are currently spear-heading committees related to new member recruitment, building relationships with project sponsors, fundraising, national days of service days, and 20th Anniversary planning. For more information or to become involved as a regional rep, please contact ncccalums@gmail.com.