CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Teams Blue 1 and Green 5 of AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps, or NCCC, a program designed for 18 to 24 year olds to travel the country doing service work, collected roughly 375 pounds of trash in Clearlake.

The AmeriCorps teams worked alongside volunteers from the Corporation for National and Community Service - Retired Senior Volunteer Program, or RSVP for the annual AmeriCorps Day.

This day commemorates the service that AmeriCorps volunteers do year round by bringing together a group of NCCC members to do needed service for the community outside of their project focus.

After watching a safety video to ensure that they knew the proper safety protocol for highway trash cleanup, the teams collected trash on the side of highways that are part of the Adopt-a-Highway program with community volunteers.

The highways were very steep and the weather was very windy, but the volunteers persevered through the rough conditions and ended up collecting more trash than was expected.

“While collecting trash is not exactly glamorous, I find it very rewarding and satisfying being able to clean up the community. Even in just a couple of hours of doing this work you can see so much progress and beautification,” said AmeriCorps NCCC member Lucina Wolf-Brown.

After the event both Green 5 (Mendocino County) and Blue 1 (Lake County) were able to connect through their service even though they work on different project sites an hour away from each other.

Bringing not just AmeriCorps teams and RSVP members together to do service but the community members as well is what AmeriCorps Day is all about.