AmeriCorps comes full circle in Red Feather

By Stephen Clearheart Johnson
North Forty News

An AmeriCorps team of 10 specially trained firefighters has encamped at the Dowdy Lake site in Red Feather Lakes. The mission of the team is to provide the U.S. Forest Service with an extra team of foresters to provide fuels reduction services and be on call for any fire that threatens the area.

This team comes through the auspices of the AmeriCorps NCCC program. Members will stay through October, when the team will wrap up its enlistment.

AmeriCorps is perhaps better known for its VISTA program, which allows people from all walks of life to be "volunteers in service to America." The NCCC program is modeled on the old Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s. NCCC teams are trained for disaster relief, homeland security, ecological restoration and other community service tasks.

The Red Feather group is an elite among NCCC teams. It was trained by the Forest Service for firefighting and fuels reduction programs. Only four NCCC teams are so trained, and all four teams are deployed in Colorado. This particular team, with ages of 22 to 24, is older than most. They passed rigorous selection tests, including the infamous "pack test" of toting 45 pounds three miles in 45 minutes.

Team members agree to a 10-month enlistment for which they receive room and board and a small stipend, along with a $4,800 education bonus upon completion. Each member must also provide 80 hours of community service in volunteer projects. Reenlistments are limited to a second year only.

This team has already worked with the local Lions Club park project and in Fort Collins for Habitat for Humanity and the Food Bank.

"AmeriCorps has given us all a chance to do something we've never done before," said team leader Christie Hofmokel, 24, from Centennial.

She explained that the team has trained and worked together in a communal setting. She noted that the team pools its food allowances and does the cooking, cleaning and housekeeping on a communal basis. Hofmokel is in her second year and is one of two team members who have had previous fire experience.

Kira Ganum, 23, of Sergeantsville, N.J., swings her chain saw to her shoulder with the easy confidence of someone who has reached a goal. "The opportunity to work on a firefighting team was the selling point for being in AmeriCorps," she said. "It's fun to run a chain saw."

For Nicole Vullo, 24, of Brevard, N.C., the experience has been life changing and has led her to an unabashed love affair with her chain saw.

"When I was young I was called a tree hugger," she said. "Now I cut down trees in the forest and now I know why."

The why involves detailed training by the Forest Service in how to thin forests for both fire mitigation and to strengthen the forest against bark beetle infestation. For Vullo, AmeriCorps means "a foot in the door to an outdoor career."

Dave Hall, 22, of Lockport, N.Y., said that he has come to "expect the unexpected." With a degree in urban planning, Hall plans to return to his studies enriched with a new sense of nature and wildness.

The unexpected recently came to Jonathan King, 24, of Ocala, Fla., in the form of meeting his first bear in the woods. "I was raised in New York City where all the animals are in the zoo," he exclaimed.

King has previously fought fires in Georgia and worked on hurricane mitigation along the Gulf Coast.

For Joe Volker, 23, from Cincinnati, the Red Feather setting offers the delights of jogging, bouldering and fishing. He noted that the nightlife lacks a bit, but they haven't yet tried karaoke night at the Pot Belly. He and Ganum both "enjoy the small town feeling," adding, "You get to feel like you're part of everything."

For this team, the roots in the original CCC have come full circle. Recently they attended a Denver ceremony to honor some original CCC members, and they are living in a cabin built by the CCC.