National Civilian Community Corps

National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC), or AmeriCorps NCCC is an AmeriCorps program that engages 18- to 24-year-olds in team-based national and community service in the United States. National Civilian Community Corps teams complete about four different six- to eight-week-long projects during their 10-month term of service. Each team is made up of eight to twelve Corps Members and one Team Leader. Corps Members and Team Leaders are representative of all colors, creeds, states, and economic status. Approximately 1,200 Corps Members and Team Leaders are chosen annually to serve at one of five regional campuses, located in Sacramento, California; Denver, Colorado; Vinton, Iowa; Vicksburg, Mississippi; and Baltimore, Maryland. Each campus serves as a training center and hub for a multi-state region. Members are required to complete a minimum of 1,700 hours of service, including 80 independent service hours, though members complete an average of 1,850 service hours per term.

In August 2012, the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) partnered to develop FEMA Corps, a new cadre of NCCC members who follow the traditional NCCC model, but serve solely on disaster response and recovery related project through FEMA.

The mission of the NCCC program is “To strengthen communities and develop leaders through team-based national and community service.”

While serving in AmeriCorps NCCC, Corps Members receive:

After successfully completing a term of service, all AmeriCorps NCCC members are enrolled in the National Service Trust and are eligible to receive a Segal AmeriCorps Education Award. A Segal AmeriCorps Education Award can be used to pay education costs at qualified institutions of higher education, for educational training, or to repay qualified student loans. The award amount for full-time AmeriCorps programs, including NCCC, is currently $5,775 based on the maximum value of the Pell Grant. The award can be accessed in full or in part, and those qualified have seven years after their term of service has ended to claim the award. Individuals can only receive Education Awards for two terms of AmeriCorps service: Full-time, half-time, reduced half-time, quarter time, and minimum time terms of service each count as one term of service.

The NCCC program was loosely based on the depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), although in practice, the differences between NCCC and CCC projects can be quite marked in both practical intent and outcome. In some respects, NCCC teams resemble their CCC predecessors, who were also required to function under rugged conditions for prolonged periods and engage in strenuous conservation and wildfire-fighting projects, flood control, and disaster relief. Unlike the original CCC, the NCCC was not created to be a public work relief program, but rather was designed to help communities meet self-identified needs through service projects and develop leadership skills in its participants.

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