About Us
HISTORY
OUR MISSION
The California Conservation Corps Foundation (CCCF) is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit public benefit organization, created in 1988, whose goal is to advance the education, training, leadership development, personal growth, and career opportunities of California Conservation Corps (CCC) corpsmembers, while protecting and enhancing California's natural resources.
The CCCF mission is to enhance the California Conservation Corps mission, programs, and corpsmembers through philanthropy.
Opportunities
Our over-arching guidance is to provide opportunities for CCC corpsmembers. Examples of opportunities the CCC Foundation has provided, in conjunction with our for-profit partners, are specialized training such as Hazwoper training or fire prevention and firefighting preparation and training. The Foundation has also provided Trauma Informed Care training for CCC corpsmembers and staff.
The Mary and Paul Carrillo, Exemplary Leadership and Volunteerism Scholarship Award is one of the scholarship opportunities that the CCC Foundation provides for CCC corpsmembers.
For the last several years, we have run a diversity program called Women in the Wilderness that provides women of color (18-24) access to our wilderness areas with an introduction to backpacking, skills for living in the backcountry, and job opportunities in natural resource management and the CCC. Of the approximately 40+ women who have participated in Women in the Wilderness, 40% have gone on to jobs in natural resource management and the CCC.
The Pathways2CCC program gives foster youth, 18-20, wilderness experiences similar to that of the Women in the Wilderness program and the CCC Foundation facilitates foster youth joining the CCC and provides ongoing support to help them succeed in the CCC.
Community Grant Projects
By way of grants, the Foundation has undertaken three projects: stormwater capture in Yvonne B. Burke Sports Complex through the Baldwin Hills Conservancy; under the Urban Greening Program of the CNRA, the greening of the playground at Grant Elementary School in East Hollywood; and, a carbon sequestration, tree planting project at the Florin Road, Sacramento location of the Sacramento Native American Health Clinic. These projects will be a benefit to the people of California and specifically to those who live in these three locations by providing green space, reduction of heat island effect, sequestration of carbon, water conservation, and energy use reduction. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, these projects will also provide valuable on-the-job training for corpsmembers and add to their skill set. The CCC Foundation stipulates in its contractors’ agreements that the contractor must agree to work with and train corpsmembers.
Give Back
The CCC Foundation has an Emergency Fund for CCC Staff and corpsmembers. We distributed $10,000 to staff and corpsmembers who suffered damage as a result of the Paradise Fire and
additional funds to CCC victims of the Big Bend area fires in Santa Cruz.
Professional Training
By way of a grant from the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), the Foundation was able to build an Energy Lab at the CCC Sacramento Energy Corps Center which has been delivering specialized training to cohorts of Energy Corps members for the past two years and will continue providing training into the future.
The CCC Foundation also facilitates professional training for CCC corpsmembers by supporting the annual Corpsmember Leadership Conference and funding the annual, statewide CCC High School Graduation.