Every CCC Graduate deserves an ALUMNI hat August 12 2020, 0 Comments
Friends of the graduating corpsmember.
In 2009, in the wake of the financial recession sweeping the US and California, the CCC made the decision to close several centers and satellites. Los Padres was one of the Centers. When I received thwe call about the closing from the Deputy Director, it was one of the saddest days of my Career.
There are many wonderful stories to tell about the community's, both in and out of the CCC, efforts to keep the CCC's presence on the Central Coast. There are so many heroes in this story; politicians, storytellers from the Tribune, leaders from local environmental groups, corpsmembers and staff.
In the end, the Los Padres Center was spared from closing. Below is a letter of thanks to Central Coast community published in the Tribune on Sunday March 22, 2009.
My desire and hope, like all former staff and corpsmembers, is that current staff and corpsmembers learn about their history- the history of the CCC and the history of the center or satellite they are assigned.
Many came before you - they lift you up upon their shoulders - like you they bore the hard work and blisters of the CCC - some are gone - some are retired - some are the thousands honored Alumni of the CCC.
Honor them with your very best effort and work of the CCC.
I ran across this in my archives. I notice in social media many early corpsmembers can't remember the dates when they started or session numbers. Here are the dates of Session 1-40. CCC HQ used to send an "intake schedule" out to camps (hard copy) before there were computers, email and such.
Here are some ways staff can purchase onthegrade products for Corpsmembers.
Finally, when any organizations or individuals donate their time and money to purchase onthegrade.com products for corpsmembers, invite them to the event to hand out the items to deserving corpsmembers. As you know the energy and excitement in the room is "next to none" when a corpsmember receives a promotion, high school diploma or graduates with scholarships.
Over the years many staff have bought onthegrade.com products for their corpsmembers for special occasions like promotions, graduations and Christmas time. Most notable was retired Tahoe Center Director John Martinez who, with OTG staff, customized the Tahoe Strong bracelet for his center. Los Padres Conservationist I Victor (Vito) Rocha, a good friend, has been buying OTG products for his corpsmembers up to his retirement in 2018. Julien Fannin from Redding has been buying the sequoia belt buckle for his crewleaders. He told me he is "playing it forward" since his Chico CI gave him one when he became a crewleader (before becoming a CI).
John, Vito and Julien used their own money for the purchases.
onthegrade gives Staff 20% off the entire purchase when you buy merch for corpsmembers. Just work with us in advance here Contact us to start the conversation and obtain a discount code.
I asked my good friend John Martinez to jot down the story of "Tahoe Strong". His inspired words are the subject of our first blog post. Enjoy.
Domenic