News : AmeriCorps graduates celebrate accomplishments as time in Vinton ends

Shannon McCoy and Katya Muller share memories of their AmeriCorps time during graduation.

AmeriCorps North Central Region Director Dan Milnes welcomes Class 16 members to their graduation.

Brittney Green of Cedar 7 shared a funny and sentimental review of the past year of AmeriCorps.

AmeriCorps members can quantify their work, which is carefully documented by program staff members.

They can tell you how many hours they have spent helping others since coming to the campus in Vinton in November: 256,212.

They can express in specific numbers many of their accomplshments:

• 441 campsites built or refurbished

• 821,965 pounds of trash and debris removed

• 6,080 seedlings planted

• 1,079 environmental educational programs conducted

• 5,747 signs built, painted and/or installed

.. and many more.

But during their graduation ceremony Thursday morning, the members of AmeriCorps NCCC Class 16 learned that some of their most meaningful accomplishments cannot be expressed sufficiently with numbers.

"You will be remembered by the lives you have touched," said Nancy Burger, the director of a Mississippi YMCA Storer Camp which has benefitted in many ways from its relationship with AmeriCorps.

Burger told the graduates how that a camp counselor came to her at breakfast one morning, with tears in her eyes because she had seen the way one of the AmeriCorps members worked with a specials need child.

Those kinds of things, said Burger, cannot be quantified with numbers.

The Oak and Cedar members of Class 16 leave Vinton today. Many return to college; other to jobs. A few may return to Vinton as team leaders or other staff members.

The Maple members, who started earlier this summer, will finish their term in February. At that time, three new teams will arrive.