September 13, 2008
Hurricane Ike slams the South Texas
Gulf Coast leaving major damage behind.
December 11, 2008
Americorps has been working with
FEMA for months helping the 
people and communities recover
from the disaster.

      Jen Chanen: I'm a member of Americorps NCCC, which
      stand for National Civilian Community Corps...
      and we are an organization for eighteen to
      twenty-four year olds... we commit to ten
      months of service with Americorps and are
      here at the DRCs (Disaster Recovery
      Centers) working at the check-in tables
      face that they see when they come in, so our
      job is to be friendly and upbeat and then get
      them connected to the resources they need
      and then wish them well on their way out.
      For me, I think that extra human touch just
      makes it a little warmer and a little friendlier...
      so if I can offer that to someone and make
      their day a little bit easier and smoother and
      make a really frustrating process go a little bit
      better, then that's important to me and that's
      why I'm here.
      Other teams are working at the Joint Field
      Office (JFO) in Austin so they are doing some
      research on future disaster preparedness
      techniques and there are other people doing
      Pre Placement Interviews (PPI) so there on
      the phone a lot... they're doing more office
      work... behind the scenes kinds of things with
      FEMA that way..
      Leah Luben: A lot of the people sitting around me are my
      teamates that are from a team from
      Americorps NCCC which is the National
      Civilian Community Corps... it's a ten month
      program for men and women that are
      eighteen to twenty-four year olds that consists
      of four community projects during which we
      travel out to communities and work in five
      different areas... however national disasters
      are our number one priority, that's how we
      came to be here in Austin and work for FEMA
      to try and house the victims displaced by the
      hurricanes.
      It's a great opportunity to work with FEMA
      because FEMA is one of the organizations
      which really reaches out to people in national
      disasters and I never thought that at this age I
      would be able to work with them... it's a really
      great opportunity.
      For me, community service has always been
      something that's kind of close to me...
      something that I've always enjoyed doing, and
      I thought that this was the perfect opportunity
      to sort of give something back to the country
      and be able to serve for them.
      Americorps: Thank you for helping FEMA help people.
      For more information, visit www.FEMA.gov