Jack William's recent progress report on the San Diego Presidio project
discusses the involvement of Americorps NCCC (National Civilian Community
Corps) members in archeological excavations there.  As someone else who has
worked with NCCC members on an archeological project, I would also like to
express my enthusiasm for the program.
 
We (California Department of Parks and Recreation) began excavations last
spring at the site of the McCoy House in Old Town San Diego State Historic
Park, just down the hill from the Presidio project.  The Department is
preparing to reconstruct an 1869 residence on the site, which also proved to
contain rich deposits associated with adobe buildings owned and presumably
occupied by Eugenia Silvas prior to 1851.  Dr. Therese Muranaka was
impressed with  Jack's training program for NCCC members, and prepared a
proposal for our project.  The proposal process was relatively simple and
fast.  As we requested, the majority of our crew had been through an 8-week
session at the Presidio, and were enthusiastic, well trained, highly
motivated, and a delight to work with.  We received excellent support from
the NCCC administration, including Jayne Turpin and David Richardson.
 
Although the political prognosis for Americorps programs may not be good, I
encourage other archeologists/cultural resource management specialists with
public service-related projects to look into involving the NCCC.  It was
certainly a rewarding experience for both our staff and the corps members,
and accomplished a lot of good work that would not have otherwise been
possible.  This program is in many ways a descendant of the CCCs of the
1930s, which also did superb preservation and devlopment work (including
archeology) in parks all over the country.  I think we have come to value
these contributions increasingly with the passage of time (e.g. many of the
CCC structures are now eligible for the National Register), and I suspect
that the same will be true of the NCCC.