Welcome Back

I am restarting the blog so that everyone can keep up with what I’m doing for the next 11 months. First, what has been going on since my last entry. When I got back from Europe, I found a job working for the American Red Cross as an AmeriCorps Disaster Preparedness Coordinator. My main job function was to teach people how to prepare for disasters. You know, Make a Plan, Get a Kit, Be Informed. I also got to respond to some disasters, with the highlight of the year being doing client casework for flood victims in Paducah, Kentucky. Not that it was good that these people had to suffer or anything, but a getting to use all the stuff I learned to actually help people kind of highlight.

So that lasted a year and then I got to return to Europe. My Mom, Dad, brother, and I went on vacation to Wales. It was very picturesque with its rugged mountains dotted with sheep and its little towns and hedge walls. We stayed in the second-hand book capital of the world, Hay-On-Wye, got to tour a coal mine, and explored a couple of castles. The main focus though was hiking in the beautiful scenery. One day we hiked Mt. Snowdon, which is known for being the mountain Sir Edmond Hillary practiced on to prepare for Everest. I wish I could tell more about the trip like how our tent blew over and we slept in the car for one night or how we missed a flight and had to spend a day in Montreal and Amsterdam, but I’ve already gotten side tracked enough. 

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This blog is supposed to be about the next 11 months. So you may have noticed that my previous job title was AmeriCorps Disaster Preparedness Coordinator. This was no regular job. This was actually a year of service through a national program called AmeriCorps. It’s kind of like the Peace Corps in the United States. There are three branches of AmeriCorps: State and National, Vista, and NCCC. My job was through AmeriCorps State, which typically places workers in nonprofit organizations that could use extra help, but can’t afford to hire more employees. So before I found this job, I had never heard of AmeriCorps, blah blah blah, and now I’ve been accepted for an exciting position in one of the other branches, the NCCC.

The AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps is a full-time residential program for men and women, ages 18-24, that strengthens communities while developing leaders through direct, team-based national and community service. I’ve been chosen as a team leader for one of those teams, which means I’m going to be living with a group of people I won’t meet until February and taking them to different states to do prearranged service projects for 9 months (+1 month of team leader training +1 month of corps member training= 11 months).The projects will last from 6-8 weeks and will be in the areas of: natural and other disasters, infrastructure improvement, environmental stewardship and conservation, energy conservation, and urban and rural development. Oh and also I’m going to be based at the Vinton, Iowa campus and will travel around the north central region of the U.S. for my projects.

Sooo… at this point I’m about 20 days away from leaving for my term of service. I thought it would be a good idea to keep up a blog while I’m away from home so everyone can know what I’m up to. This is going to be a very intense 11 months that I’m sure will be filled with plenty of blog fodder so please  check back. I expect to be quite busy so my goal is to post an entry at least once a month… so don’t check too often or you’ll be disappointed. Anyway, that about wraps it up. I will leave you with a youtube promotional video that gives a good overview.  Also visit http://www.americorps.gov/ if you want to learn more about AmeriCorps.

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