Fernandez gives back through AmeriCorps

MORGAN HILL resident Katie Fernandez was one of three Californians to begin a 10-month term of service in the National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC), an AmeriCorps program.
Founded in 1994, AmeriCorps NCCC is a residential national service program that supports disaster relief, the environment, infrastructure improvement, energy conservation and urban and rural development.
Fernandez, a 2010 Live Oak High School alumna who is based in the regional campus of AmeriCorps in Denver, started her first project this month.
“I chose to do national service because I think anyone who thinks critically about their country and comes to believe in its principles should find a way to give back and affirm them,” said Fernandez, who graduated with a degree in Anthropology and Education from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 2014.
Fernandez arrived at her regional campus in early October to begin training. This training, which prepared them for 10 months of full-time service with AmeriCorps NCCC, emphasized teamwork, leadership development, communication, service learning and certification in various hard skills.
As a Corps member, Fernandez is responsible for completing a series of service projects—each up to eight weeks long—as part of a 10 to 12 person team.
Their first service projects will end mid-December, at which time their teams will break for the winter holidays and begin a new project in a new location in January.
Fifty-six teams composed of over 600 Corps members and team leaders began service projects in November throughout the Pacific and Southwest regions, based in Sacramento and Denver respectively. Some of these projects include assisting with flooding cleanup and wilderness restoration projects at Death Valley National Park, supporting volunteer and donation management at the Utah Food Bank, and installing community gardens in New Mexico and Arizona, among others.
There are three additional NCCC campuses located in Baltimore, Md., Vinton, Iowa, and Vicksburg, Miss.
AmeriCorps NCCC members, all 18 to 24 years old, complete at least 1,700 hours of service during the 10-month program. In exchange for their service, they receive $5,730 to help pay for college. Other benefits include a small living stipend, room and board, leadership development, team building skills, and the knowledge that, through active citizenship, they can indeed make a difference.
Over the past 21 years, more than 900,000 Americans have served over 1.2 billion hours across the family of AmeriCorps programs. Currently, about 75,000 people serve in AmeriCorps programs nationwide each year, about 1,200 of whom serve with AmeriCorps NCCC.
AmeriCorps NCCC is administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service. For more information about AmeriCorps NCCC, go to nationalservice.gov/nccc.