Shelter from the Blame

Sing it loud from the rooftops,

Come dance on the rivers edge,

Carry me on the mountain to the end of love,

Standin' in a field of voices,

Find shelter from the blame,

Even if you think it's all over,

I'll be here til the colors fade



So as promised I am here to attempt to explain everything that I have been throwing at you that I assume you are greatly confused by.

I realize at one point when I was still in either TLT or first getting my Pod that I explained the Green Unit, Pods, my team, the campus, my plans etc etc. to you, but I also assume that ya’ll need a refresher, so I am going to give it to you…. If you recall, before receiving my actual team of Green 5 (the team that the previous post was mostly about) I had a Pod. Pods were temporary teams that lasted only 5 days.  The reason the CMs are placed into Pods before going into the actual teams is so that we have a way of organizing and keeping a track of them before they take their “aptitude test” to see what specific job they are going to get at FEMA. Oh god, I see that I have gotten ahead of myself again.

Okay okay okay…. So there is AmeriCorps NCCC which is a national service program made up of teams 18-24 years old who get things done for America. FEMACorps is a subdivision of NCCC that is sponsored by FEMA and works to assist in the recovery from disaster. In order for the FEMACorps members to “get things done” they have to be specially trained in four different areas of FEMA. They include: public assistance (that’s me!) which focuses on assessing damages made to public property, the community, or local businesses; individual assistance which is focuses on assessing the damages done to personal homes and property; logistics which is warehouse work and inventory; and community relations which focuses on spreading word of FEMA and engaging with the community members.

Ok, so back to it… Months ago I found out that I was on the FEMA Green Unit. I’m pretty sure I told ya’ll about it- how it’s made up of 6 TLs and our Unit Leader is named Josh. Okay, well that’s what it is. Anyway, my Pod. My Pod was awesome, but it ended and now I have Green 5 which is forever and always my permanent team. Green 5 is made up of 7 members: Tyler, Jennifer, Samantha, Andrew, Jason, Curice, and Jeremy. We are all part of the Public Assistance section of FEMA. We will be working directly with FEMA supervisors in Joint Field Offices across the country and helping public entities get back on their feet after disasters.

Before we can get to that point, however, we must go through some specific FEMA trainings. Those all started this week. We have been having eight hours of direct trainings a day for since Tuesday. We learn the total overview of FEMA, their mission, their history, and their operations. From there we learned about the different jobs that each FEMACorps team will be doing. These trainings are lengthy, but they are still fairly broad. On Friday we will pack up our vans and leave Sacramento for Artesia, New Mexico. In New Mexico we will first be getting the CMs officially FEMA badged so that they are able to access the secure government buildings just like the TLs are. After that they will be issued their laptops (like the one I am typing on right now) and their Blackberrys. The following week and a half will be spent teaching us the ins and outs of our designated jobs. I will be learning all about filing and properly filling out paperwork, while my team will be learning how to deal with the customers, answer phones, fill out papers, and generally assist the public during such hard times. We are going to be going non-stop for the next 16 days or possibly more. Once the two weeks in Artesia, NM are over and we are fully (as fully trained as we can be without actually helping anyone) we will pack up the van again and head out onto our first deployment project. All of this will come after we have done copious amounts of paperwork for both FEMA and the NCCC Campus in Sacramento. We are still very unsure of where we will end up come the end of March. It could be anywhere from California to New York to Florida for hurricane season. It all depends on FEMAs needs at the time, but it doesn’t really matter to any of us because we just want to help those in need while learning to work for the federal government and emergency management.

Being a TL is great. It’s such an amazing opportunity especially since we will be working directly with the federal government and underneath some important supervisors at the JFOs and I am truly grateful that I am here having this experience and meeting so many hardworking, amazing and talented people. With all that said…. Damn, I’m tired. I’m tired because it’s such hardwork and I understand that this job is 24/7. That’s kind of the cool part, but also the tough part. As TLs we joke around a lot about how much easier it would have been if we were just CMs. We think about how great it would be to not care that much and to just sit in trainings and not have to stay up until 11 every night doing paperwork and waking up at 6:15 every morning and making sure 8 other people have breakfast, packed lunches, and food for dinner that night. We joke about how nice it would be for someone else to drive the van for us and budget our meals and plan the cleaning schedule. But at the end of the day we look down at our Green shirts and we know the responsibilities we have are because we deserve them and because we were hired to handle these challenges. It becomes more evident every day that we are TLs for a reason. It’s weird to think so highly of myself because I’m not an overly confident person, but when I sit at a “roundtable discussion” with the National Director of AmeriCorps NCCC and the Regional Director of the Pacific Region and hear them both say that the Team Leaders are the hardest working and most responsible people in the program, it really makes me take a look at myself. I don’t want to come off as being cocky or anything because I’m truly not. I’m not even fully convinced I’m a good team leader, what with the way my team treats me sometimes, but I know that deep down I do have the ability to stern and show my team that I demand respect. This year is somehow turning out to be exactly how I expected it, but also like something totally different and opposite. I always knew coming into this that I would become great friends with also every other TL because that’s just how my life is. At Orientation at Merrimack, I hung out more with the other leaders than my own group of first year students. On MORE retreat, I strongly with the staff and the leaders, as well, and out here it is no different. However, I’m finding myself more aware of the fact that I am not supposed to be friends with the Corps so the fact that I rely so heavily on my other TLs is probably a good thing. It’s totally opposite in that I thought I would get this group of people on my team who were just dying to be my friend because I was the TL and they couldn’t be my friend, but I am actually doing the opposite. I’m pretty sure I’m scaring them off with the minimal amount that I talk to them or involve them in many decisions. It’s so weird for me to think of this group from such an outside perspective like I am right now, but sometimes I think it helps to bring me back into that leadership mindset I need to have for this year. Thinking about the sense of leadership in myself is something I’m definitely not used to yet, but I find with each passing day it’s coming out more and more and it’s getting easier to notice natural leader qualities in myself. I’m hopeful that these feelings will continue through the year and make it one of the best experiences of my entire life.

*FLASH FORWARD*

All 22 TLs and their Corps drove for three days starting last Friday from Sacramento, CA to Artesia, NM for our official training in FEMA specific jobs. We are staying at a base called FLETC (pronounced Flet-C) which stands for Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. It is where most DHS employees are trained. This week we share the campus with Border Patrol Officers in training. The rules of this facility are much more strict than they were on our home base in McClellan Park. Allow me to explain what I mean by that. Prior to arriving at FLETC, we were told that it was a federal facility and it was to be treated with the utmost respect and we were to hold our CMs to the highest standards… Which we did, until they decided to not take it quite as seriously as we intended. The first night we were here, there was an incident in the rec center and the CMs have been banned from it ever since. Other rules that followed the discipline from the incident include: wearing uniform from breakfast until bed time, walking in a clean formation, never being able to walk around base alone (CMs always need to have a buddy), unit cleanings of the base every night, and finally a 9pm curfew (it’s not that bad because they have TVs in their rooms). Needless to say, the CMs were not happy. Since then, we have loosened up a bit, but not by much.

Another exciting aspect of this past week was the arrival of the Denver Campus FEMACorps. We have been so busy that we haven’t had much time to interact with them, but from what we have seen, it’s obvious the differences between regions. The Sacramento group (my campus/corps/team whatever you want to call it) is strict. Prior to the rules enacted last week, we had our CMs in their black boots with their uniform every day. We don’t allow any breach in policy and we like to act comepletely professional in and outside of trainings. The Denver campus, we had been warned, is evidently not as strict. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s just interesting for us to experience different leadership styles. We have met a few TLs from Denver and we have a meeting scheduled with them tonight and everyone has been nice so far!

Saturday through Friday is when we start our position specific trainings where my team will learn the definition and the actual motions of being a FEMACorps public assistant. We will be in training sessions from 7:30am until 4:30pm every day and then we still have to fit in PT as well as our AmeriCorps NCCC jobs. It’s busy busy busy, but we are (kind of) making it work. I’m trying my hardest to fit in time to write to everyone and blog, but I’ll be honest- it’s currently becoming nearly impossible. We still haven’t found out where we are heading, but I feel like we are getting close. I should probably get back to focusing on training now…. I’ll write soon……. I think.