So Much to Learn, So Little Time

Day 3:

Wednesday was an exciting day as I was finally not alone as the “new VISTA.” On Wednesday morning, two new AmeriCorps VISTAs arrived at the CCC to begin their term of service. Scott, whom I had met at training in Colorado, is an Army vet who is now a reserve. His primary role will be to work alongside Craig and create and implement a program for veterans in the CCC after their term of service. Within the CCC they hire a number of veterans from all service areas. Although typical CCC corps members are 18-25, veterans are allowed to be older- up to 29, and because of this it has been a challenge for the CCC to implement any programs for them- hence where Scott comes in. The other VISTA who arrived on Wednesday is named Katie. She is from Indiana and she is the VISTA leader. This means that she will mostly be dealing with folks like me and Scott who are VISTAs. She has already completed one term of service as a VISTA, so she will most likely not be doing any work concerning the CCC unless she has some down time. The majority of her job is focused on keeping the relationship between volunteers and the sponsoring organization pleased as well as filing weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports. She will work directly with Susan and make sure that both VISTA and the CCC are holding up their ends of the service agreements.

When Scott and Katie arrived, Tony kept up his tradition and the six of us went to grab coffee (if you’re keeping track at home the six people would be: me, Tony, Scott, Craig, Katie, and Susan). We sat at the coffee shop and discussed some ideas and plans about what is to come over the next year. We talked about creating a better database for CCC members to use for exiting the program, implementing more social media into CMD (corpsmember development), and ways to make the relationship between corpsmembers and veterans more amiable. After coffee, we headed back to the office and I continued to do some research into apprenticeships and other things. At 1 o’clock we had to go to a conference room to begin our on-the-job training. The head of CMD, Hunt, came as well and introduced the department and what it all entails. We played a game of “never have I ever” and I learned that during the CMD weekly meetings, we will usually play some sort of team building activity. The group seems to work very fluidly and I am excited to be a part of it. Training lasted the rest of the day, so I headed home to hang out with the dogs and cats and just relax because Thursday was going to be a long day.

Day 4:

The CCC has a specific division of corpsmembers who are trained and certified by the US Forestry department to fight wildfires. On Thursday morning I had to arrive at the office at 6:30am so that Craig could take the VISTAs to witness a training and see one of the CCC’s residential training centers. We went to Greenwood, CA watched the members debrief the activities from the night before and prepare for the training of the day. The members who are part of this program have 5 days of training. The first two are classroom lessons with a few hands on activities and the last two days are field training. On Wednesday night (or early Thursday morning) the facilitators at the Greenwoods center woke up all the corpsmembers are 10pm and told them there was an emergency and they needed to go down the mountain to help. The crews had to put on all their gear as if the scenario were real and hike about 1.5 miles down and up a slope. This took them about 3 hours as they were learning how to react to such a situation. On Thursday, they proceeded to a different site where there was another “fire” and had to create a fire line. It was really neat to see the members in action with all their gear. They were taking everything so seriously! At one point the facilitator turned to us VISTAs and said “it’s time for the IWI- incident within an incident.” All of a sudden we heard a man yelling as if he had broken both his legs. The CCC members had to react and figure out a way to get the “injured” man out of the forest and into safety. It was such an exciting experience and I was really thankful I got to see how mature, strong, and focused the members are. At some points I found myself thinking that being a member of the CCC would be a really neat experience. I’d get to work outside all the time and I’d learn how to take care of the earth. I’m not sure if I would be able to handle all the physical labor, long days, and rough terrain that the members have to endure. I give them a lot of credit- their work is far from easy. I was excited to be out of the office for the day, watching the people I am going to help do work they are proud of. Being able to witness their abilities will help me assist them in more ways. I’ll be able to see what they are really capable of and what sorts of interests they have which will then allow me to place them in programs, get jobs, or further their education in those departments.

One week into this service term and I am feeling motivated, excited, and slightly nervous. I joined AmeriCorps to help people- that is the overall goal for me and for the program. Last year, I helped my team, but I never felt that I assisted those who really needed it. I never witnessed the disaster survivors gain back all the things they had lost, I never interacted with people who were struggling in a time of need, I never felt like I made a difference in the lives of those outside of the program; however, my year was still a success because of my teams accomplishments. This year, I plan on doing more than that. I want to help the CCC continue to create this program that will help members reach their goals after their service year.  I want to impact the lives of their members and sustain the success of the program and I know I am capable of doing so. I believe in the mission of the CCC and I especially believe in the mission of AmeriCorps. I want to bring Americans together to strengthen communities and continue to build leaders this year and beyond. I want to get things done. (If you’re wondering, yes I did just fist bump the last part of that… no shame).