Last month, I hung up my yellow vest for the last time. We were there after wildfires tore through Los Angeles communities, standing alongside survivors in shelters, donation centers, disaster recovery centers and scorched neighborhoods. We helped Californians take their first steps toward rebuilding. And now, we’re gone. After the federal government cut funding for AmeriCorps’ disaster relief programs, more than 60 of us in the California Emergency Response Corps were told our service was ending early. … At a time when wildfires, floods and climate-driven disasters are only becoming more frequent, we need competent and experienced disaster response professionals. They don’t magically appear. They have to get their start somewhere. Programs like this are how we grow the next generation of emergency responders, crisis managers and community resilience leaders.
–Written by Lauren Levitt, an emergency preparedness outreach lead and California Emergency Response Corps member with AmeriCorps.