Emergency Response Team, AmeriCorps

Service has always been a big part of Caleb Goodie’s (SJS ’15) life.  While at Saint James, he recalls volunteering at the Antietam Battlefield lighting and tutoring at Fountain Rock elementary as well as taking mission trips with his church.  

“I think that’s something I love about Saint James is that they want you to be a servant, and they try to get you to do that in a lot of different ways,” he said.

While a student at Colgate University, he volunteered with the Hamilton Fire Department.  Prior to graduating magna cum laude from Colgate last spring with a BA in Geography, Caleb used that experience as a fire fighter to help shape his future goals.

“By my senior year when I was thinking about jobs, I knew 100 percent I didn’t want to be sitting behind a desk,” he said. “I wanted to be out and engaged and serving the community like I had with the fire department.”

He started looking into programs that offered wildfire or disaster experience, and eventually applied to AmeriCorps.  Caleb is now an Emergency Response Team Member at AmeriCorps St. Louis which is under the AmeriCorps State and National branch.  He and his team focus on environmental stewardship, partnering with government and nonprofit organizations on conservation efforts. 

“It was definitely that feeling of doing something worthwhile that drew me to the program,” he said.
Caleb started his 11-month term last September with a month-long trip to Montana where he trained with the local forest service. He received his chainsaw certification and wildfire certification, as well as other basics such as First Aid and CPR training. 

He then went to his home base in St. Louis, working throughout the state on various conservation efforts.

“We helped the Missouri Department of Conservation and the Department of Natural Resources with invasive species removal and glade restoration,” Caleb said. “They also do a lot of prescribed burning in the spring, so we helped construct the fire line and participated in the burn.”

His team has also seen work outside of Missouri, traveling to Illinois and California.

“In November and December, I went to California and did fuels mitigation and prevention projects in relation to wildfires,” he said. “California has a lot of public land that backs up to private land, so we were trying to structure the landscape in a way to keep those homes safe if something were to break out.”

In March, his conservation work was suspended as the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown the nation. Caleb and his team spent time volunteering at a local food bank and doing outreach with the homeless community. At the end of April, Caleb had the opportunity to join a team going to Independence, MO, just outside Kansas City, to assist with their COVID-19 response. 

“My title was Donations Management Liaison, and I was supporting the Mid-America Regional Council (MARC). I coordinated with them and with people who had items to donate in the area around Kansas City, and tried to get them connected with organizations in need – long-term care facilities, first responders, nursing homes, childcare providers, and different groups that needed things like PPE and diapers,” Caleb said.

His 30-day deployment in Independence was completed at the end of May, and he returned to St. Louis. His work on conservation projects started back up in June, with his team focusing on the St. Louis region in order to eliminate the need to travel. 

The immediate future for Caleb includes a second year in AmeriCorps—he applied in May and will be staying in St. Louis to be a team lead for the new first year members that are just starting their service. Caleb encourages students who are thinking about service to consider AmeriCorps. 

“AmeriCorps is a great program and there are a lot of different things you can do—from teaching to disaster response, there’s all kinds of options, so it’s a great avenue to continue the things you learn at Saint James,” he said.