News : AmeriCorps Class 21 members arrive in Vinton

NCCC members got their first look at the campus that will be their home for the next 9 months.

NCCC leaders help members Dequan Alstan & Courtney Switzer fit their respirators.

Megan Hutchings tries on a respirator mask during sign-it at the AmeriCorps NCCC campus Tuesday.

Signing up with the Red Cross is a new part of AmeriCorps NCCC registration.

From dozens of states, they came to Vinton, on Tuesday.

They lined up and signed up, and many tried on coveralls and respirator masks for the very first time.

A few of the The 200 or so members of the AmeriCorps NCCC Class 21 who arrived at the Iowa Braille School campus seemed curious or perhaps a bit concerned to learn that trying on a mask that protect workers from mold and other airborne contaminants were among the very first thing they did during their very first hour in Vinton.

But not all of them.

“I think it’s awesome,” said Drake McClaurin, whose blue cap with the “D” for Duke University was the first clue that he had arrived from North Carolina.

Some new arrivals were seeing Iowa – and winter weather – for the first time.

At least one person there, however, was glad to be back where it snows.

Team leader Anna Schmidt had moved from Michigan to Florida before joining the North Central Region campus in Vinton. She said she was getting bored with year-long summer and was glad to be back in a cold climate.

After six years and eight months in Vinton, the NCCC program is largely the same as it was when the first team leaders arrived just in time to staff the Red Cross shelter in the IBSSS gym during the Flood of 2008 in June of that year.

Jody Burns, who arrived from North Carolina in 2008 to help set up the campus for the first AmeriCorps Class in Vinton, said the members continue to serve in a variety of service areas within the 10 states of the region.

Trying on of the respirators, along with rain gear, gloves, and the legendary coveralls, was part of the first day for the new arrivals.

One other new part of arrival day is signing up with the Red Cross. Each member met a Red Cross volunteer, then went on-line to enter his or her information. This process added the members to the Red Cross database, which will facilitate involving them in Red Cross project, which include disaster prevention as well as response. One new Red Cross project that both Vinton residents and AmeriCorps members are likely to hear more about in the coming months is the distribution of smoke detectors to Iowa residents.

For now, however, the AmeriCorps members and their dozen or so green-shirted team leaders are settling into the 6-week training routine, which includes physical training, and a variety of required courses.

The trainees will formally join AmeriCorps during an induction ceremony in early March, then leave the campus for a series of service projects.