Craig Dicht, Joshua Tree, CA

The story of my post-collegiate 20s can only told with multiple references to SCA. After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 2004 I spent ten months with SCA Massachusetts, teaching environmental education, building trails, and living peaceably by a pond in Dubuque State Forest with an array of wildlife (including two dozen of the finest humans on the planet). There I found a deeper sense of community, self-knowledge, and feelings of purpose in action that had lain dormant through 16 years of classroom-based learning.

I wanted more, and found it with several SCA programs: the West Virginia Sustainable Communities Corps; an environmental education internship at SF Bay National Wildlife Refuge; the New Jersey Green Team high school crews; and leading three years of crews for the SCA Desert Restoration Corps and WildCorps. I could take days sharing my appreciation for the people, places, and opportunities to serve from each SCA program. Suffice it to say that I would not be who I am or where I am without the chances I took that came my way through SCA. I am now settled in Joshua Tree, California, working as a freelance field biologist, and raising two daughters (Anu and Mahalia) with my partner, Clare.