Hello everyone. I
have not been doing a good job blogging.
In fact, I have been doing a terrible job at blogging. I spent most of
round one trying to figure out exactly how to be an effective corps
member. This round I am going to make an
effort to blog semi regularly, probably a mixture of stories from last round
and from the round I am about to go into.
But for now, this post will be an update/ overview post to
catch you all up to the basics of the life I have been living.
Basics: I am part of AmeriCorps NCCC FEMA Corps. Lets break this down.
AmeriCorps – I am volunteering for 10 months, with a small
living stipend given to me by the government so that I can live and so that my
sponsor organization doesn’t have to pay for me.
NCCC – National Civilian Community Corps – a division of
AmeriCorps for 18 to 24 year olds, which provides food, housing and
transportation (a 15 passenger van) to small teams of volunteers so that they
can be mobile and travel around the country.
Since NCCC members live and work together, we are encouraged to do other
“good” things together like working out three times a week and do extra
volunteer service together. At the end
of the program, if you get a certain number of hours of service you “graduate”
and get a pell education grant.
FEMA – Federal Emergency Management Agency – Our sponsor
organization. My team is working with
the Public Assistance branch of FEMA in order to write grants to get local
governments federal money so that they can repair from disasters. We do not have helicopters to save
anyone. We just have money.
Corps (pronounced “core”) – There are 60 of us who trained
together in Baltimore. We are the Eagle Unit! I am in a team of eight corps
members and a team leader known as Eagle 6. There are four other major campuses around the country, each serving different regions.
CTI: Corps Training Institute – One month of training. The first three weeks were AmeriCorps NCCC
training in Baltimore, Maryland (my assigned campus), which was basically how to coexist in a team. This admittedly got tedious very
quickly. That being said, once you get
out into the field it becomes obvious that working in a NCCC team is an extreme
level of teamwork that is difficult to prepare for. But more on that later. The
last week of training we drove down to Vicksburg, Mississippi for FEMA specific
training. Our team is public assistance,
but every team has a different specialty role.
There is Disaster Service Assistance, Individual Assistance, Logistics,
External Affairs, and Planning.
Round One: Colorado Springs! We spent seven weeks in
Colorado Springs helping to repair damages caused by flooding earlier in the
year. We worked in the Area Field Office
with some FEMA staff workers doing work varying from scanning to full out grant
writing. A great deal happened this
round. Stories from the round will
probably come out in the next few posts.
Round Two: New York City. Probably. With the flooding in South
Carolina, we might end up going there. But
for right now we leave tomorrow for NYC. FEMA Flexible!
