Katie Ryer, 20, has been settling into life in Marion after returning home from ten months of volunteering with AmeriCorps. From October 24, 2013 to July 25, 2014, Ryer worked with a team of other volunteers on four different charity projects throughout California and Oregon.
How did such an adventure begin? A simple statement: “Mom, Dad, I don’t want to go back to school.”
After graduating from Old Rochester Regional High School in 2012, Ryer went to the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine, just twenty minutes south of Portland. “I was a bio major when I first started school, and I’m sitting in class going ‘I don’t really want to be here,’” Ryer recalled. She confessed this to her parents over winter break, and began searching for other options.
“I was really lucky because they were really supportive of it,” said Ryer. Her father was the one who suggested taking a year off for AmeriCorps; Ryer applied and was accepted.
Of AmeriCorps’ three volunteering programs, Ryer chose the National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC). This program allows volunteers ages 18 to 24 to travel to four different projects within their region over the ten-month term. AmeriCorps divides the country into five regions; Ryer chose the Pacific region, putting her at the Sacramento, California campus.
With the plans made, it was time to pack. “They pretty much cover everything,” said Ryer, explaining how AmeriCorps pays for the plane ticket, food, uniforms, safety equipment, and a sleeping bag. She simply had to pack her own daywear.
Finally, it was time to fly out to the west coast. Unfortunately, the initial start date of October 9, 2013 was pushed off to the 24th due to the government shutdown. This left about half the time for initial training on the Sacramento campus. Still, roughly three hundred volunteers were trained, going through disaster relief training, specialty role training, CPR certification, and a fair amount of lectures.
The volunteers were broken into four units – silver, blue, gold, and green – and these units were broken into seven or eight teams composed of up to twelve volunteers. The teams each work on unique projects throughout the ten months. Ryer was one of six members on the Silver 1 team.
On November 13, 2013, the first round of projects began. For this first “spike,” as they call it, the Silver 1 team headed to Los Angeles.
“We were in south central LA and we were tutoring inner city, at risk, foster care children,” said Ryer. The Silver 1 team was spread across two high schools, one elementary school, and an office working on a holiday festival.
Ryer worked at Crenshaw High School, prepping a classroom during the day and tutoring kids in the afternoon. Helping them with their homework, Ryer laughed about her own struggles to recall old high school lessons. Still, she was always able to help when needed, and it wasn’t all work and no play.
“If they had all their homework done, they could play Monopoly or Connect Four – it’s like a reward to get their homework done – so we would have giant Monopoly games,” recalled Ryer with a smile on her face, “They’d get so into it.”
Along with tutoring, the holiday festival took up much of Silver 1’s time. “There were two girls in the main office and they were working on the holiday festival, which they ended up running because our sponsor quit half-way through the round,” said Ryer.
This left Silver 1 in charge of a festival for 3,000 impoverished children. Each child was to receive six presents and a free meal. “We wrapped so many presents,” Ryer said, admitting that she can wrap just about anything now that she’s had so much experience.
On the day of the festival, Silver 1 was handing out presents from 2:00 to 6:00 pm, but people continued to show up later. Not wanting to leave anyone out, the team continued to work.
“We were still giving out gifts for an hour afterwards. It was awesome,” said Ryer, recalling the memory fondly. “We had a teammate, Mac, who was just grabbing stuff out of the truck and just tossing it to people.”
After putting smiles on the faces of thousands of kids, the first spike came to an end. Silver 1 returned to the Sacramento campus for winter break on December 20, 2013. Ryer spent some of her break with family in California, while some of her teammates flew home. She also spent some time on campus with other volunteers.
“I am grateful that I stayed out there because when I was on campus I got to bond with people who I would not have bonded with,” said Ryer.
As the new year began, AmeriCorps returned to work. All units were on campus for a transition period and further training before the second spike.
This training included specialty role meetings. Ryer’s specialty roles were “peer helper” and “VST” (vehicles, safety, tools). As a peer helper, Ryer would meet with other volunteers and counselors to talk about their experiences and do activities they could bring to their teams to bond. With VST, Ryer attended quick meetings with other volunteers to talk about the logistical side of their experiences.
When January 15, 2014 came around, it was time for the second spike, and Silver 1 headed to Oregon.
“We were in Newport, Oregon, which is a beautiful place on the coast,” said Ryer, “We were working with Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, and we were staying in their campground, but we were working at Beaver Creek State Park.”
Here the Silver 1 team worked hard, removing invasive blackberries, planting trees, and clearing trails. They even had to take an amphibian survey, which required walking through the marshes searching for salamander and frog eggs. Ryer recalls this being a difficult task, especially in the cold of Oregon’s rainy winter. While she was lucky enough to remain dry, a couple of her teammates fell into the marshes. Calls of “Man down!” jokingly passed over their radios.
While Ryer said Newport was beautiful, she also advises visiting the town in any season other than winter. Here in New England, winter brings snow, but in Oregon, they get days of rain. Ryer and her other New England teammates laughed about how the town basically shut down over a couple of snow flurries. During one of these flurries, Silver 1 was asked to shovel out the campground, but they actually didn’t own snow shovels. “So they gave us sand shovels,” laughed Ryer.
As their project in Oregon came to an end in late March, Silver 1 headed to their third spike back in California. They lived in Mendocino while working for Habitat for Humanity in Fort Bragg.
“We built a duplex house,” said Ryer, “so that was really cool.”
The team worked alongside the fathers of the families who would be living in the duplex. Since they didn’t speak English very well, Silver 1 was lucky that one of their team members was fluent in Spanish. Under the advisement of these two men, a site supervisor, and a retired carpenter volunteer, Silver 1 was able to make great progress on the duplex.
“It was just the cement that was there, and then when we left we had 60% of the siding done, the roof was done, the electrical had been started and there were holes drilled, one staircase was done, we had all the windows in, doors were getting put in,” said Ryer. “It was a lot of do it, stop, take it down, redo it. So, a lot of learn-as-you-go kind of thing.”
For the fourth and final spike of AmeriCorps, Silver 1 headed back to Oregon.
“We were in Grants Pass, Oregon, which is right on the border of California and Oregon,” said Ryer, “We were working with the Josephine County Food Bank, and we were working on Raptor Creek Farm, which grows vegetables for the food bank.”
During their time on the farm, Silver 1 planted seeds, weeded gardens, and harvested food. They beautified the gardens, putting up signs, making a trail, and building another shade house by the CareSource garden for the disabled and elderly.
By the time their volunteer work was finished, Silver 1 had harvested 1,300 pounds of squash, zucchini, and tomatoes for the food bank. “When we showed up it was just dirt, flat dirt,” said Ryer, proud of the turnout from her and her teammates’ work. “They were amazed.”
With a successful completion of their final project, Silver 1 returned to the Sacramento campus for out-processing with all the other units. They returned gear and said their goodbyes. AmeriCorps was wrapped up with an awards banquet, followed by AmeriProm, but “I didn’t go to that; I watched Finding Nemo with my friend instead,” laughed Ryer. She enjoyed her last few days with her new friends before returning home.
On July 25, Ryer arrived home in Marion at 2:30 am. Overtired, jet-lagged, and yet full of energy, she was happy to be home. Since then she’s been reuniting with friends, visiting family, and getting used to not being on a strict schedule. While she readjusts, Ryer’s experiences with AmeriCorps stay with her.
“I definitely want to keep volunteering,” she said, “It’s a lot of fun to do. You meet so many interesting people when you volunteer … I want to broaden my connections that I have.”
As she prepares to return to the University of New England in the fall, Ryer keeps the values AmeriCorps taught her. “It definitely made me realize that I need to focus more,” she said.
With a new major in psychology, Ryer is looking forward to a second year a college. “I got into psychology because I realized I’m good at talking to people and helping them through their problems,” she said, citing experiences at AmeriCorps. With a profession in the psychology field, Ryer hopes to give people who are struggling something to look forward to, if only to get them through the day.
After getting a bachelor’s degree in psychology, Ryer plans on going into the Peace Corps, then pursuing a master’s degree. That’s her plan at the moment, but she admits it’s open to flexibility. Ryer said society pressures people – “You have to go to college; you have to get an education; you have to get a good job; you have to get a family.” – but she encourages others to see beyond that stoic plan.
“You have to live your life the way you want to live it and make yourself happy,” she said, “It sounds selfish, but you can’t take care of other people and not take care of yourself.”
After the guidance her AmeriCorps experiences provided her, Ryer has a clearer, positive outlook on the future.
By Renae Reints
