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AmeriCorps team completes bevy of Helena-area service projects
By Nolan Lister, Helena Independent Record on 5/23/2022
After nearly two months in the Helena area, a National Civilian Community Corps team moved on Sunday, leaving behind spruced up community gardens, pristine campsites and even some affordable homes.
The NCCC team, operating under the AmeriCorps umbrella, arrived in Helena April 5 and put in hours of work for Montana State Parks, Helena Area Habitat for Humanity and local community gardens.
The group of eight young people planned to ship out Sunday and will continue its 10-month public service tour in Big Fork.
Amairnay Flores is an 18-year-old from El Paso, Texas, and the team’s community relations representative. These past weeks marked her first visit to Montana.
“I like it,” Flores said, smiling in the rain-soaked Sixth Ward Community Garden Friday morning. “It’s pretty cold. A lot colder than El Paso.”
She said the overnight snowstorm did not leave too much snow in the garden.
The team pulled weeds and cleared garden plots and the large soil pile in the Sixth Ward and at the Helena Food Share community garden.
They scraped and repainted cabins in the Wolf Creek area.
Near Salmon Lake, the team performed deforestation work, clearing forest debris from trails and campsites.
All the team members interviewed said they have enjoyed the outdoors work the most.
Alex King, from Sarasota, Florida, was among them.
“We’re learning a lot of skills in this program,” King said. “Some of the forestry work we’ve been doing has been rewarding.”
He said he is considering a career in forestry.
And that youthful indecisiveness is common among the group, team member Sarah Lummus, a 19-year-old from New Hampshire, said.
Their journey starts out with a month of training on things like work safety and how to live and work with a group of peers before they set out on what amounts to a nine-month road trip — they are provided a van — across the region.
Flores said the group typically handles one to three jobs at each location, depending on the amount of sponsors.
Lummus, who took this year following her high school graduation to participate in the program, said the training, new friendships and experience in a variety of work were exactly what she was looking for ahead of her college career.
“The program has taught us in a way how to make a life,” she said.
As an only child, Lummus said this is the first time she has lived with people her age.
“Going grocery shopping with friends is fun,” she said with a chuckle as she pulled a weed from the garden bed.
The team also spent their time working with Helena Area Habitat for Humanity. They stayed in some of the organization’s units reserved for volunteers during their stay.
Flores called it some of their best work.
“It was really nice to see the progress when we started with basically a slab of cement,” she said.
The team helped erect framing and build a roof over one of the organization’s current builds.
“The Habitat crew is fantastic,” she said. “They’ve been some of the best supervisors we’ve had.”
The NCCC team will make the drive to Big Fork Sunday morning, where Flores said they will be doing more state park work and splitting their time with the local Boys and Girls Club.