Dear Friend,

At PCEC, we aspire to serve the community of Park County, to show up for one another and help others connect in a similar way through volunteering, learning, or getting engaged in issues they care about. We recognize and value the time and energy everyone puts into working on making this a better place for us all to live, a commitment that is evident throughout Livingston and Park County. 

Holding service in such high regard, we are dismayed that AmeriCorps had its funding abruptly terminated for over 1,000 programs across all 50 states, leading to the premature exit of over 32,000 AmeriCorps members and senior volunteers. This thoughtless act is especially devastating for our own AmeriCorps VISTA member, and community member Joanna Massier. The $400 million cuts to this program will leave individuals, communities and governments scrambling to find alternative solutions. Including some of our local agencies and nonprofit partners.

While we write this email with heavy hearts and disappointment, this email also serves as a celebration of such an incredible group of humans that believe in the value of service. It is but a short testimony to the program and the impact these young brave individuals have had in our community.

For years, PCEC and other partner non-profits and agencies have been working together with AmeriCorps VISTA, NCCC and other AmeriCorps funded programs, hosting passionate, talented young folks. You have seen them on the trails, in meetings, at the transfer station, in classrooms, at the farmer’s market, planting trees, conducting interviews, helping organizations sign up to Give A Hoot and with the Upper Yellowstone Watershed Group’s river recreation survey, in the Farm to School and Paradise Permaculture gardens, mowing city parks, conducting greenhouse gas assessments, energy audits and more. 

You can read more about their impacts and Joanna's work below.

Members give months and sometimes years of their lives in service, living on poverty-level wage stipends, and in return earn a modest education award (around $7,000) and small benefits like childcare and healthcare. While their personal benefits are small, the immense value they create for our community and service hosts is incomparable. Even economically, in 2020, an economic study reported that for every $1 invested by Congress in AmeriCorps and Senior Corps programs, there is a return of over $17 to society, program members, and the government. 

What is service, and what does it mean to be in service? When we serve, we make ourselves available to others: to our families, friends, churches, clubs, organizations and our country. In its most basic sense it is simply showing up, helping out, doing a job for someone, or just lending a hand. It is an act of giving for more than what you may get back in return. 

Here at PCEC, we award community members annually with our Volunteer of the Year and Janet Shirey Spirit Award, recognizing individuals who devote considerable time giving back to this community. Our strong culture of volunteerism is showcased by numerous initiatives such as Livingston Loves Trees, the Green Initiative, the Livingston Bike Club, LTown Soup and by engaging in city and county planning processes. We support individuals committed to diversifying our urban forest, executing trail maintenance and trailhead improvements, weed pulls, native seed bombs, elevating their voice in city and county planning, fighting gravel pits, gold mines and more. AmeriCorps has been there as a partner along the way. 

In this country, we rightfully bestow great honor on those who have served, recognizing their selflessness and sense of duty. At PCEC, we believe those who sign up for two years to work for poverty-level wages to volunteer in communities across America should also be afforded our admiration. AmeriCorps volunteers are critical community builders, not only constructing houses and trails but also securing vital funding, driving city planning and resilience initiatives, and restoring public spaces like playgrounds, cemeteries, and trails. 

As an organization that has directly benefited from their dedication, and with a few staff and their family members who are proud AmeriCorps and Montana Conservation Corps alumni, we can attest to the profound impact the program and these individuals have.

Please join us in thanking Jo for her service as she finishes out the month as a part-time PCEC employee and on to her next transition, and all the other admirable young men and women who have volunteered their time and serve our country and community. And please keep reading below to learn about some of the impacts AmeriCorps has had on our community.

In Service, 

From all of us at PCEC

AmeriCorps in Park County and Montana

For the past five years, PCEC and other partner non-profits and agencies have been working together with AmeriCorps VISTA and NCCC, hosting young environmental stewards to assist with projects and boots on the ground. You have seen them on the trails, at trailheads, the transfer station, in classrooms, at the Farmer’s Market, planting trees, conducting interviews, helping organizations sign up to Give A Hoot, helping with the UYWG’s river recreation survey, in the Farm to School and Paradise Permaculture gardens, mowing city parks, and more. We would like to take the opportunity to talk about a fraction of the work they have done in service to our community. 

We were not alone. Across Montana and the country the cuts to AmeriCorps have devastated after school programs, tutoring initiatives, support for seniors, and various other community services.The cuts have left both the volunteers without stipends and benefits and the organizations they served without crucial staff and resources. 

In Montana, AmeriCorps cuts also impact AgCorps with the Montana Department of Agriculture and Fish Wildlife and Parks (FWP) Americorps. AgCorp provides Montana schools and communities with the resources and training to learn about agriculture’s role in our lives and how to become better environmental stewards, expanding local food opportunities, and supporting organizations in implementing ag literacy programs highlighting how the agriculture industry works, where food comes from, and who grows it. FWP workers help make Montana’s state parks better places to visit, providing lessons to children, strengthening Montana State Parks as an outdoor classroom, promoting stewardship in local communities, and organizing and promoting volunteer opportunities.

AmeriCorps VISTA Resilience Corps 2022-2025 (terminated early)

Since August 2022  we have hosted an AmeriCorps VISTA ResilienceCorps member, working with us here in Park County. VISTA stands for Volunteer in Service to America. Two different individuals served in that role and were tasked with working on a community resilience guidebook and public library. Among those recently terminated was an AmeriCoprs VISTA who was currently serving with PCEC and the Park County community.

Our first VISTA member, Katherine Fazekas, served from August 2022 to August 2023, to work on community resilience projects, and this young new chemistry graduate had a big impact. She started engaging with community stakeholders, developed an outreach campaign and started a comprehensive resource library. Katherine's work directly led to: 

• Securing a $60,000 grant for Livewell49 to pave the Alpenglow Trail and increase ADA accessibility to Livingston HealthCare
• Initiating conversations and elevating community resilience to a leading City of Livingston growth policy initiative
• Developing a USDA application for Commercial Composting in Livingston
• Creating a grant database for future resilience projects and leading four community resilience café events that brought people together to discuss resilience.

Joanna Massier, joined us in August 2023 to continue this work. A University of Iowa graduate with a degree in environmental policy and creative writing, her passion for environmental justice and community building drew her to serve with AmeriCorps and Park County Environmental Council. She worked on completing and refining the library, identifying new stakeholders and interviewing over 30 community members, discussing what a resilient community means to them. She gave presentations to local organizations and was a guest speaker for a youth climate webinar series, participated in the Local Emergency Planning Committee and its subsidiary Planning Committee, assisted with the integration of a Montana Conservation Corps member, and assisted with the Farmer’s Market Waste Station. 

She started to develop place-based resources and a guidebook, but her work was cut short this spring. Jo’s work expanded through other resilience programs, including  training volunteers, supporting the Livingston Loves Trees program and LTown Soup micro-grant dinner. She has helped plant 206 trees and conducted annual health checks on all 375 trees planted through the program. 

Like Katherine before her, Joanna became an integral part of our community. She serves as  Secretary for Yellowstone Bend Citizens Council; as Secretary for the Spay Neuter Clinic; she volunteers for Livingston HealthCare, Community Closet, the Food Resource Center and others. 

Katherine and Joanna did not just build resources, they cultivated crucial connections and strategic pathways for our community's future. They live what it means to be more resilient.

AmeriCorps National Civilian Conservation Corps (NCCC) 2021-2023

From 2021 -2023, PCEC hosted AmeriCorps NCCC members who supported Livingston, Park County, and our partners. They worked to amplify our local efforts and provide essential resources for projects. These nine to eleven person teams tackled projects that directly benefited our environment, infrastructure, and community well-being. 

NCCC worked with partners such as the City of Livingston Parks Department, Park County Health Department, Farm to School, Park County Community Foundation, Livingston Food Resource Center, Western Sustainability Exchange, Livingston Bike Club, Livingston School District, Abuse Support and Prevention Education Network, Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness Foundation, Luccock Park Camp, Montana Roots, Paradise Permaculture, and Rotary Club. The NCCC crew also jumped in and helped residents and businesses immediately following the 2022 flood. 

In the three summers they were in Park County, NCCC service members contributed over 7,400 hours of service, bringing an estimated $220,000+ value to our community. 

Overall, some of NCCC's impact included planting 268 trees, diverting 1,472 gallons of compost from the waste stream, and collecting and disposing of  6,338 pounds of trash. These teams built and maintained school food gardens, educated in the classrooms, served youth meals, restored and maintained acres of parks and trails, and provided direct support for community organizations and agencies, helping us build a stronger, more resilient Park County.

You can read more details about their projects below.

NCCC project impacts by the numbers with PCEC 

NCCC 2021: Our inaugural team, partnered with F2SPC and others, and provided 2,144 hours of crucial initial support for environmental restoration and community programs amidst the pandemic's impact on volunteerism. Here are a few of their accomplishments:

• Managing the zero waste composting station weekly at the Farmer’s Market (with PCEC)
• Assist with COVID precautions, set up, sign maintenance and more at the Farmer’s Market (with the Western Sustainability Exchange)
• Provided technical support and outreach for Give A Hoot (With Park County Community Foundation)
• Safe house relocation, clean up and sorting donations  (With ASPEN)
• Trail ambassador training and speaking to hundreds of tourists and recreationists at Pine Creek, Suce Creek and Jardine trailheads on leave no trace principles and recreating responsibly and refurbished 13 campsites (With the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness Foundation)
• Two days of trail maintenance at Porcupine Ibex trail and North Dry Creek to Dry Divide, including draining standing water and removing downed logs. Restored 1 mile of hiking trails (With Livingston Bike Club)
• Building new garden beds, refurbishing aquaponics tanks, helping educate through LINKS for learning, farm clean up and more. Served 300 meals at the school, supported 90 K-12 students in afterschool programs, conducted 7 summer youth program events (With Farm to School of Park County)
• Seasonal worker relief, including mowing and weed eating, park maintenance, cleaning up trash at the transfer station, around the Yellowstone River and at the city compost site up Swingley (With City of Livingston Public Works)
• Constructed and installed portable hand washing stations at the Farmer's Market (With Rotary)
• Removed over 200 pounds of alien vegetation, cleared 1 acre of public land, planted 50 native plants (with several partners)
• Conducted 10 environmental education workshops teaching 381 people

NCCC 2022: This 9-member team put in 715 hours on environmental stewardship and over 1,850 hours across Park County: 

• Visited 121 homes to collect data for the public health department Casper Study
• Planted 64 trees
• Taught 223 people in environmental education classes and conducted 3 environmental education workshops
• Restored 8 acres of public parks
• Sorted and inventoried over 425 pounds of food and 400 pounds of household goods, and helped folks recover from the 2022 flood. 

NCCC 2023: Their 4,552 hours primarily focused on public space improvements: 

• Planting 101 trees and monitoring 165 trees
• Conducting 5 environmental education workshops
• Planting 822 native plants, tending gardens and repairing irrigation systems
• Restoring and maintaining the cemetery for Memorial Day, repairing a parks playground
• Helping local organizations by providing additional resources like the Farmers Market

TONIGHT! 

Geologic History of Montana including all of the significant natural history events that shaped our state over billions of years. Starting with the formation of the first continental crust through plate collisions 3.6 billion years ago, to the arrival of the first people in Montana over 14,000 years ago, this is the greatest story seldom told. Buckle up and get ready for the ride of a geologic lifetime! Dr. Thomas holds a PhD in Geology and is a Regents’ Professor at the University of Montana, Western. He received the national Carnegie/CASE Professor of the Year award in 2009 and is a fellow of the Geological Society of America. His current research is on the provenance, sediment transport and tectonic significance of Miocene river deposits shed off the Yellowstone thermal bulge.

This lecture is presented in association with Elk River Arts & Lectures, The Park County Community Foundation, The Park County Environmental Council, Carol and Sal Lalani, Yellowstone Forever, The Friends of Park County, and The Tom Miner Basin Association.