IOWA
From 1933 to 1942, the Civilian Conservation Corps worked across Iowa. What they left behind is still here. We are picking the work back up.
THE WORK IS STILL STANDING.
Iowa had more than fifty CCC camps. Enrollees built Backbone State Park (the state's first), Lake of Three Fires, Maquoketa Caves, Pikes Peak, and Lacey-Keosauqua. CCC crews did massive soil conservation work across the Iowa farms ravaged by erosion during the Dust Bowl years, planting shelterbelts and terraces still visible today. They built the limestone CCC architecture that defines Iowa state parks and put up fire towers across the state's forested southeast.
CAPABLE HANDS. HONEST WORK.
Iowa remembers what was built by people willing to do it.
A COLLECTIVE OF BUILDERS.
The CCC Boys corps is based in Colleton County, South Carolina. Justin and Jeremy Shearer and their cousin Joe Nettles, grandsons of Joseph Connelly, are building it from home. We do hurricane prep along the coast, shingle recycling out of the Columbia metro, marine apprenticeships in Walterboro, and a software portfolio with AI as the partner. The corps is worker-owned: members draw a steady wage first, then operating costs, then runway, then surplus to the people who made it happen. Not shareholders.
South Carolina is the first chapter. Other states are next, as builders in those places raise their hands. The playbook, curriculum, kit specs, and operating model are all open source under Creative Commons. Anyone can use them. Federated branches share the central infrastructure (a stablecoin-native neobank, a shared apprentice curriculum, a brand built by everyone) but operate locally. No fees. No buy-in. You are a branch, not a franchise.
A CCC BOYS IOWA BRANCH?
We're building the framework, the technology, the apprenticeship curriculum, and the playbook out in the open. As Iowa-rooted builders raise their hands, branches form. If this resonates and you'd like to help bring a CCC Boys branch to Iowa, write us.
WRITE THE CORPS join@cccboys.com