Twitchell begins term with NCCC

    Foxcroft Academy graduate Elias Twitchell, now of Wayne, Ill., recently began a 10-month term of service in the National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC), an AmeriCorps program. Twitchell is based out of the AmeriCorps NCCC regional campus in Sacramento and will be beginning his first projects this month.

    Founded in 1994, AmeriCorps NCCC is a residential national service program that supports disaster relief, the environment, infrastructure improvement, energy conservation and urban and rural development. Over the past 20 years, over 900,000 Americans have served over 1.2 billion hours across the family of AmeriCorps programs. Currently, about 80,000 people serve in AmeriCorps programs nationwide each year, about 2,500 of whom serve with AmeriCorps NCCC.
    Twitchell arrived at the regional campuses in early October to begin training. This training, which prepared him for 10 months of full-time service with AmeriCorps NCCC, emphasized teamwork, leadership development, communication, service learning and certification by the American Red Cross.
    Twitchell will be responsible for completing a series of six- to eight-week-long service projects as part of a 10- to 12-person team. The first service projects will end mid-December, at which time their teams will break for the winter holidays and begin a new project in a new location in January.
    Fifty-six teams composed of over 600 Corps members and team leaders began service projects in November throughout the Pacific and Southwest regions, based in Sacramento in Denver respectively. Some of these projects include providing services to homeless clients at Sacramento Loaves and Fishes, supporting a community garden in Missouri and a children’s hospital in Arkansas, and assisting with ongoing flood recovery in northern Colorado, among others.
    Before joining the NCCC, Twitchell attended Foxcroft Academy and Indiana University-Bloomington. He graduated in 2013 with a degree in East Asian Studies/MA Cert. Twitchell said, “[I joined NCCC] To find myself and help people in whatever capacity I could manage.” Twitchell is the son of David Twitchell.
    AmeriCorps NCCC members, all 18 to 24, complete at least 1,700 hours of service during the 10-month program. In exchange for their service, they receive $5,730 for college. Other benefits include a small living stipend, room and board, leadership development, team building skills, and the knowledge that, through active citizenship, they can indeed make a difference. AmeriCorps NCCC is administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service.