it turned out they were a crop of some 30 Americorps volunteers who had been “assigned” to my town “”
I believe that Americorps members are PAID. They are not ‘volunteers”.
They are paid, but for some reason they are referred to as “volunteers,” I guess because they rarely have any professional qualifications and it’s not truly a job for which people apply and are selected. They’re like those PIRG “volunteers,” who are also just warm bodies who get paid for going door to door promoting the leftwing cause of the moment.
When their leader was babbling away about her Americorps band, she actually tried to recruit people from our little group of genuine volunteers (unpaid, that is). She said they needed some local people and that they would be paid and trained, although I gathered that the qualifications were minimal and breathing was probably the main one.