The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
- by Melanie Lessen - Quill Reporter
Americorps NCCC (National Civilian Community Corp), arrived to help clean up the cemetery in La Harpe on Friday, July 8th.
The group of eight, consisted of Josh Rossman and Justin Marshall, both from New York, Lindsey Joy of Michigan, Robyn Gabrielle of Pennsylvania, Judi Ramiscal of California, Amy Chidichimo of New Jersey, Elijah Washburn of Massachusetts, and team leader, Libby Hannah of Maine. This electric group of people were eager to talk about their jobs and experiences.
Currently they are living at Lincoln Homes, apartments in Monmouth, while they service Roseville, Kirkwood, Monmouth, and La Harpe for six weeks. On Friday, at the cemetery, they were mainly going through repairing and straighten all of the headstones.
Besides restoration jobs, they go camping with boys and girls clubs, work for Habitat for Humanity, and some even fight wildfires, to name a few.
They stated that it was great to be able to mix up the volunteer work, so it always stays interesting. They also mix up their work teams as well, from project to project, based on each individual's personal preference of jobs.
They were quick to state that this wasn't just volunteer work, it is a paying job, with the paycheck being money for school.
A participant has to complete 1700 hours of work to receive the educational grants. There is also a small paycheck and all room, board, and transportation is paid for. To be a part of this program there is an application process and interview.
The group was very sincere in stating, that even though they go all over the country, and are from much larger cities themselves, they enjoy small town charm. They stated that everyone here in rural Illinois is sincerely interested in getting to know about them, unlike in larger cities. They also enjoy how well they get fed here.
This groups home base is out of Denver, Colorado, which covers the largest region, the central 17 states.