An Ameri-Experience to Remember

Ellen King is a former AmeriCorps*VISTA member who served at the Michigan Community Service Commission in 2010-2011. Following her year of service in Michigan, Ellen became an AmeriCorps NCCC member for the North Central Region. Read on to learn about her last year of service - which is very different than that of a Michigan's AmeriCorps member. 

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be part of a team-based national service program? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live and work with 10-12 other people as you travel the country? I did, and that’s why I was interested in serving as an AmeriCorps NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps) member.

Hello! My name is Ellen King and I am in the final weeks of completing the 11 month NCCC program as a field team leader. For those of you who are not familiar with the program, you should visit Kaitlyn Sargent’s blog post from September. Whereas Kaitlyn served in Denver, Colorado, I served in Vinton, Iowa. Vinton serves the North Central Region of the United States, and Denver serves the Southern Region. Vinton and Denver are just two of the five AmeriCorps NCCC campuses (Vicksburg, MS, Sacramento, CA, and Perry Point, MD are the other three).

After completing a year of service with the Michigan Community Service Commission as the Learn and Serve AmeriCorps*VISTA, I knew I wanted to “get things done” by getting my hands dirty and working in the field. AmeriCorps NCCC addresses the critical needs of communities in the areas of urban and rural development, infrastructure improvement, energy conservation, disaster, and environmental stewardship. I’m not quite ready to reflect on my experience as a field team leader, so instead, what follows is an insight into my service experience.

As a team leader, I arrived on campus in January with the other 26 team leaders for a month long Team Leader Training. During this month, the staff held trainings on supervisory skills, the program itself, and even put us through situational scenarios. There were of course many other trainings, but actually going through the scenarios with the staff was in my opinion the best training as we prepared for the Corps members to arrive.

In February, roughly 200 Corps members arrived and the month-long Corps Training Institute began. Again, there were many trainings held for Corps members and team leaders as the whole Corps prepared for their first-round project in March. The Corps members were on campus for four days before they were assigned to their permanent teams. As a team leader, I was incredibly nervous to meet and even greet my team for the first time. Team reveal night went smoothly, and soon there were nine of us in “Oak 6,” our team name.

I did not really know what I was getting myself into until the day we arrived at our first-round project in Oxford, Michigan. My team had the opportunity to work at Crossroads for Youth, a treatment facility for at-risk youth. Not only did we get to plan and lead activities with the youth, but we also learned new tasks as we provided maintenance to the facilities.

Next, we travelled to Iowa City, Iowa where we worked with two project sponsors. We split our week by working three days for the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and two days a week for the Johnson County Fairgrounds. While working with the USACE, we built trail, fixed erosion problems on the trail, and replaced stairs along the trail. For the fairgrounds, we helped prepare for the fair by painting barns, fencing, and the office.

After summer break, my team headed to Pierre, South Dakota where we provided support and helped supervise a summer day camp program at the Oahe Family YMCA. This was my favorite project by far - mostly because as 18-24 year-old adults, were allowed to behave as five year-olds for five weeks. Once we left Pierre, we served for 2 weeks with Cedar Valley Habitat for Humanity in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Our time was mostly spent helping to revitalize the exterior of an older home by replacing siding, scrapping and painting, and digging a trench for excess water.

In September, Oak 6 left for Milwaukee, Wisconsin to serve with the Milwaukee County Parks and the Nature Conservancy. The team provided ecological restoration for the organizations by removing invasive species (lots of buckthorn), constructing new hiking trails, and clearing and restoring an oak savannah.

It has been truly remarkable the number of places I have visited, the number of new skills I have obtained, and all of my experiences as a result. I will always remember using a sledge hammer for the first time in Oxford for scrap metal removal. I will always remember the view of Coralville Lake as we built new trail. I will always remember saying and hearing repeatedly “If you can hear my voice say quiet!” while we were in Pierre. And I will of course always remember what my back felt like after using a Pulaski on the trails in Milwaukee. But if I have learned anything this year, it is this: it’s not just about where I am or the service I am doing. It’s about who I am serving with and the relationships I build with them.