Voices : CONVERSATION : ‘Whatever’s at the End of This Rainbow, I Need It Now’ : AmeriCorps: Three people who were among the first to take part talk about their experiences.

AmeriCorps was, during the 1992 presidential campaign, a sweeping national service plan that would offer college or vocational education grants in exchange for a year of work on health, education, public safety or environmental projects. But Congress agreed to fund only 350 projects with 20,000 job slots nationally. One such project is the Southern California Urban Water Conservation Program, a creation of the California Department of Water Resources, the Metropolitan Water District and others. It operates out of the Regional Job Training Center in Compton, distributing ultra - low-flush toilets and water-saving shower heads to residents. With AmeriCorps funding under attack in Congress, three workers who joined up last September talked with JAMES BLAIR about their national service.

Question: Why did you join AmeriCorps?

Alicia Cayce, 26, Los Angeles: My ex-roommate worked for the Water Conservation Department in San Dimas. She told me about it. In the beginning I just wanted some kind of training. I was looking for a job and she told me this was the best opportunity.

Clay Pittman, 53, Compton: I had been in the fur industry for nearly 30 years and I got laid off--you know, animal-rights activists. I was still young enough to work, which I want to do, and I wasn’t old enough to draw Social Security, which I don’t want to do. So I was looking for something that would interest me, and water very much does interest me.

Patricia Madison, 17, Compton: I was going to school and working part-time--always telling my teacher that I needed a better job, especially if I wanted to be dependent on myself because I’m a teen mother, a single parent, and I don’t want to depend on welfare.

Q. What do you do in the water conservation program?

Madison: I do customer intake, fill out the forms and do inventory.

Cayce: I’ve done a little bit of everything, but what I’m doing right now is entering application data for the ultra-low-flush toilets on the computer. That includes customer’s name, address, water agency, account number, whether they rent or own and how many toilets they have in the house and other information. I also do customer follow-up.

Pittman: After giving out new shower heads and toilets, we collect the old toilets and break them up (to be) recycled to make street-patching compound.

Q. What does the program pay?

Cayce: As a full-time AmeriCorps worker, you get a living allowance of $5.40 an hour (plus health benefits and child care). At the end of the year we get a $4,725 education award.

Q. What good is Americorps doing?

Pittman: The further you get into this water situation the bigger it is. The rivers are being polluted. The oceans are being polluted. The ground we walk on is polluted. The air’s being polluted. Something has to be done.

Q. What are you getting out of it?

Cayce: In the beginning I just wanted some kind of training, but as time went by I began to learn about water conservation, about recycling and to be motivated to the point that I want to go to school and do my degree in geology and hydrology. I’m very excited about the AmeriCorps program. I’ve been growing as a person. I’m constantly learning something--desalinization, water pumping, all the stuff about the environment I wasn’t aware of before.

Madison: For me it’s (job) experience, because that’s really what they ask for when you go looking for a job. And I’m learning a lot of things. I’m just glad AmeriCorps offered me this job because otherwise I would have been working so hard for not as much money as I needed. I would have become dependent on welfare. I’m really glad that I’m on my own.

It’s my money. I worked for it. I made it. It feels good.

Pittman: I came in wanting to put something into this program and the more I learned about it the more interested I became. (My family) is glad I found something to do because idle time is bad for me. If you can’t pay your bills, it takes your manhood away. I’m in on the ground floor. We’re the first class and most of the time when you’re first, you win.

Q. How will you use your education award? What will you do after your year of service?

Madison: I want to go to USC and get involved with criminal justice. I want to be a probation officer.

Cayce: When I’m through here, I’m planning to move to Detroit, Mich., with my husband. I’m applying to Wayne State University. Currently, I’m waiting for information about their geology department.

Pittman: I don’t know where we go after this. I wouldn’t mind going overseas, wherever I can be used in the water industry. Whatever’s at the end of this rainbow, I need it now because I have a family and kids to raise and a home. I can’t spend four years investing in college. But wherever it leads me, I do believe in God and I’m sure he has a plan.

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