PEORIA, Ill. — Since September, a group of nine young adults from various locations across the United States have been working with the Peoria Park District.
The group works for AmeriCorps NCCC. NCCC places teams, who commit to 10 months in the program, across the country to help a sponsor organization with a variety of community needs.
“NCCC focuses mainly on urban and rural development, infrastructure improvement, energy conservation, and other components for service,” said team leader Alyssa Duany.
Here in Peoria the team consisting of people from Florida, California, Illinois, Minnesota, Maryland, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Michigan have been working with the PPD to remove invasive species and prairie restoration.
This serves a couple purposes for the park district.
“[Hill prairies] produce a lot more oxygen than forests. Also, [the Peoria Park District] want to bring in more species such as honey bees back into the area that aren’t as common anymore because of the lack of hill prairie,” said NCCC member Kayla Sides.
The NCCC team here in Peoria have been hard at work since arriving in September. Parks and recreations maintenance manager Jacob Kuban endorses the work the team has done.
“For the park district as a whole, [the NCCC team] has been fantastic. We’ve been estimating the amount of brush they’ve removed at Donovan Park and we’re closing in on 15,000 pounds. I wish I could have a crew like this everyday,” said Kuban.
Not only are the hard working members of the team from different areas of the country, but they also came to AmeriCorps NCCC at different times in their lives.
Team member Sydney Bell was taking a gap year and wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. She says that her father told her about AmeriCorps and decided to apply.
Duany heard about NCCC from a friend in her sorority who was in a different branch of AmeriCorps, FEMA Corps.
Sides originally wanted to go into the Peace Corps after graduating college, but she found AmeriCorps as she did more research. Sides also said that participating in the program has opened up many doors for her as she plans to move to New York after working for AmeriCorps NCCC.
Completion of the 10-month program also means reward for the NCCC members.
“Once we graduate the program we get a $6,000 stipend for education. You can use that for really anything education based. In addition, there’s potential loan forgiveness and loan forbearance while you’re in the program,” said Duany.
For those interested in possibly joining NCCC, Duany offers some advice.
“Think about why you want to join the program, what you want to get out of it, and if those things match what the program has to offer,” said Duany.
More information about AmeriCorps NCCC can be found HERE.
