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Get to the PointAlumni spotlight

Returning to Hope Danielle was the Team Leader of

Moose 4, Class XVII here at Perry

Point, MD

by Buffalo 3

When Buffalo 3 arrived at Camp Hope

for Kids, we found out that Moose 4

had been there last year. So we hunted

down former Team Leader Danielle

Arroyo to find out more about the his-

tory of AmeriCorps at the site.

Why did you decide to be a Team

Leader?

I went to school for horticulture, which

is my real passion, but I really enjoy

people and forming relationships with

people and being a part of that devel-

opmental stage in people's life. I

also love traveling, and I thought

about joining the Navy for a while to

help serve my country, meet people,

and travel, but when I thought about it

more it was a little more intense than

what I wanted my experience to be.

Then I thought of Peace Corps and I

didn't know that AmeriCorps existed

until I went onto the Peace Corps web-

site and then I found AmeriCorps. I

thought I would much rather help out

my own country before I even thought

about going to another one. There

are definitely issues in the United

States. So, that's originally why I

signed up. I originally signed up to be

in the Mississippi campus as a Unit

Support Team Leader. The budget

didn't pass at the beginning of the

year, so they said, “Well, we'd still like

to have you as far as NCCC, but we're

going to redirect you to either the Iowa

or Maryland campus.”

I'm from Connecticut, so I was think-

ing, “Oh please, not Maryland, please

not Maryland. I know everything

about the Northeast already.” I ended

up going to Maryland and I was a little

bummed inside, but there's always

going to be someplace you've never

been before. Like, I had obviously

never been to Schwenksville, Pennsyl-

vania before. It was amazing. I got an

experience as a Team Leader that I

would never have gotten as a Unit

Support Team Leader and I am so

thankful for that.

Did you find it hard to jump right

into being a Team Leader without

being a Corps Member first?

Absolutely, you know, I got there and the

year I did it, there was a solid number of

Team Leaders who had been at Perry

Point the year before. They were throw-

ing around all these acronyms and I was

so confused, I had no idea what a POL

was. I thought, “Oh my gosh, they al-

ready have such a great head start on all

the acronyms and all the meanings and

they already know what kind of Team

Leader they want to be and what they

think is important because they had their

experience last year.”

As I went along, I felt like I had a cer-

tain advantage that they didn't. I was

starting with a clean, fresh plate. I had

no judgments on anything. There were

some Team Leaders who really loved

their Corps year and were all about

their Corps year and that was how they

decided what kind of Team Leader they

wanted to be. For me, I just went into

it being my own person and with my

team, we all played in the woods a lot

of the time and they would ask, “Oh

Danielle, what's this plant?” And I

would go on and on about some plant

nerd tangent and I was really able to

add in my own flavor and not have any

Class 17 Team Leader Danielle with her Moose 4 Corps Member Jacob Miller at the

Delaware Food Bank

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preconceived notions about my team

or anything to compare them to.

What was your favorite aspect of

working at Camp Hope?

It's beautiful there. You have complete

run of this chunk of land, with the wa-

ter right there. We had canoes and we

did the zip line and the rock wall and

we had bonfires. I really enjoyed it

from a nature perspective. There were

definitely frustrations that my team

had with it. It is a very isolated area.

Our first round was in New Orleans

and they are completely opposite. It

was a bit of a culture shock for them

going from New Orleans to Schwenks-

ville. I loved it!

Do you have a particular

memory of the project that

stands out?

Some of my Corps Members and I work-

ing in a canoe. I'd gone canoeing before,

so I explained how to step in the canoe

and how you do this and that, and I was

rolling around a little bit to show them. I

was wearing regular clothes at the time.

When I tried to get out [of the canoe,] I

completely ate mud; totally face dove

into the water while trying to get out.

From that, I got the name Mudfoot for

the rest of the year. We all laughed

about it, but I wasn't that upset. It was

just pretty funny.

You were interrupted while

working at Hope for Kids to go

on disaster. What was your reac-

tion when you got the news?

I was stoked. I was really excited. I

can remember being at Starbucks

when I got the call with one of my

Corps Members, Jenna. We got the

call and I was on the phone with Ja-

son, the Moose Unit Leader, and I im-

mediately went inside and called to

Jenna, “Jenna! We have to leave!

We're going on disaster!” We were

jumping up and down from excitement

because it was the first disaster of the

year, so it was a pretty big deal. It was

to Mississippi where the flooding was

happening, and it was on a Red Cross

budget, so it was a pretty good deal.

We were all very excited.

You got to come back to Camp

Hope for Kids and finish up some

of the work that had been inter-

rupted?

Yeah, we were in Mississippi for two

weeks and we went back to Camp

Hope for Kids after that. It was nice,

we got to finish painting and cleaning

the insides of the cabins. We also got

to do the zip line and the rock wall at

that point.

If there was one thing that you

could change about your Amer-

iCorps experience, what would

that be?

I would have stayed more on top of my

receipts. I wouldn't have changed any-

thing about my team or my Team

Leader style, but I would have stayed

more on top of my receipts. I was

notorious for losing receipts all the

time.

How did your AmeriCorps expe-

rience shape what you're doing

now?

It's opened so many doors for me. Af-

ter AmeriCorps, I actually went back

to New Orleans for three months and I

was volunteering down there and it

was amazing. I never would have gone

there without AmeriCorps. I had nev-

er even given New Orleans that much

thought in terms of visiting, but New

Orleans is definitely a place that has

changed who I am. AmeriCorps in

general, the people you meet are all

there because they want to help. It's a

really great thing to bond over. I be-

came very close with my team and es-

pecially Green Team. Green Team

from my year, they're some of my best

Class 17 Moose 4 Team Leader Danielle paints a house in New Orleans, LA