Grist: After disasters, AmeriCorps was everywhere. What happens when it’s gone?

By Kate Yoder – May 15, 2025

After devastating fires tore through Los Angeles in January, a crew of more than 300 young people showed up to help, many of them members of the national service program AmeriCorps. Among them was Julian Nava-Cortez, who traveled from northern California to assist survivors at a disaster recovery center near Altadena, where the Eaton Fire had nearly destroyed the entire neighborhood. People arrived in tears, overwhelmed and angry, he said.

“We were the first faces that they’d see,” said Nava-Cortez, a 23-year-old member of the California Emergency Response Corps, one of two AmeriCorps programs that sent 74 workers to the fires. He guided people to the resources they needed to secure emergency housing, navigate insurance claims, and go through the process of debris removal. He sometimes worked 11-hour, emotionally draining shifts, listening to stories of what survivors had lost. What kept him going was how grateful people were for his help.