Corps Member Reflection: Josh Beam, River 3 Over the past year that I have served in AmeriCorps NCCC, my life has been influenced exponentially by the beauty found in simple acts of humanitarianism. I’ve been given the chance to benefit others with my actions in ways that I never would have thought I’d be able to. From reconstructing damaged areas due to natural disasters, to tutoring school children in low income areas, I have touched the soul of this nation as my forefathers intended, for the improvement of others. Though there were the occasional challenges, such as personality conflicts and occasionally poor living conditions, my team has been able to overcome these challenges and prosper in an area that is known to break down communities much larger than our own. I find a lot of pride in my brothers and sisters in the AmeriCorps NCCC program, not just because they understand how stressful it can be to shadow your own wants and needs for the improvement of others, but because we have all found and understood deeper parts of ourselves due in part to such conditions. Ironically, it was in one of these very troubling moments of my experience that I have my fondest memory. During a Habitat for Humanity project my team was working with in Atlantic Beach, Florida, my team was prone to disagreement quite easily. During one of these moments, I was better able to understand the way in which my fellow Corps members’ feelings and personalities play into the team dynamic. From this point forward, I was better able to gauge my own input into conversations and to better read the input of others. The amount of times we disagreed was having a definite decline. I’m happy to say that my team is working extremely well now. I personally find that because we came to these troubles earlier on and found conclusions much earlier than other teams with the same issues, we had more time to promote the positive team dynamics of our multiple personalities. I feel that my team is so close now that we have reached this point, that I will without a doubt, find that saying good bye to my team will be the hardest part of leaving this program. To all those who wish to join AmeriCorps NCCC, the only bit of advice I can offer is to understand that this program focuses on the teams’ capabilities to improve communities, not the individual’s, though one can work harder than others. It is the team that makes the impact; the individual seems to only make ripples.
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