Light Rain, 66°
Weather sponsored by:

Program dedicated to serving communities to fight drugs, homelessness, hunger

For Clay Today
Posted 3/16/22

CLAY COUNTY – Fleming Island’s Kathryn McDade is currently serving with the National Civilian Community Corps, a 10-month, full-time AmeriCorps program. Founded in 1994, AmeriCorps NCCC …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Don't have an ID?


Print subscribers

If you're a print subscriber, but do not yet have an online account, click here to create one.

Non-subscribers

Click here to see your options for subscribing.

Single day pass

You also have the option of purchasing 24 hours of access, for $1.00. Click here to purchase a single day pass.

Program dedicated to serving communities to fight drugs, homelessness, hunger


Posted

CLAY COUNTY – Fleming Island’s Kathryn McDade is currently serving with the National Civilian Community Corps, a 10-month, full-time AmeriCorps program. Founded in 1994, AmeriCorps NCCC strengthens communities and develops its young adult members into leaders.

 AmeriCorps Week 2022 is an opportunity to recognize the service of the 250,000 Americans engaged in AmeriCorps and AmeriCorps Seniors programs annually. These dedicated citizens help communities across the nation, ensuring students stay on track to graduate, combatting hunger and homelessness, responding to natural disasters, fighting the opioid epidemic, helping seniors live independently, supporting veterans and military families and much more. 

AmeriCorps NCCC operates out of four campuses, which serve as regional administrative hubs and training facilities. These campuses, located in Sacramento, California, Aurora, Colorado, Vinton, Iowa, and Vicksburg, Mississippi, train and deploy new classes of members several times each year. McDade began her term of service in Fall 2021 at the Pacific Region campus in Sacramento and will graduate from the program in June 2022.

McDade is completing a series of different six- to 12-week-long service projects in different places across her assigned region as part of a five- to 12-person team. Projects support disaster relief, the environment, infrastructure improvement, energy conservation and urban and rural development.

As a Team Leader, McDade is responsible for managing the daily activities of the members on their team. She serves as a role model, educator, safety manager, and liaison between the campus and project sponsor. She began their term of service with an additional month of training prior to member arrival.

Before joining the NCCC, McDade attended Fleming Island High and Florida State University, which she graduated from in 2017 with a degree in Environment and Society. McDade also served with Peace Corps in Ruvuma and Songea in Tanzania from 2019-2020.

“After being evacuated from the country and our terms ending early (due to the COVID-19 Pandemic), I was looking to fulfill the same services in a capacity that the world would allow, given the circumstances of a pandemic,” McDade said. “I chose to do a national service term because it provides a balanced marriage between communities and service members to work towards a common goal.”

AmeriCorps NCCC members complete at least 1,700 hours of service during the 10-month program. Corps Members are all 18 to 26 years old; there is no upper age limit for Team Leaders. In exchange for their service, all program participants receive $6,495 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. AmeriCorps NCCC is one of the hundreds of programs administered by the larger AmeriCorps agency. For more information about AmeriCorps NCCC, visit www.americorps.gov/nccc.