Weekly Energy Saving Tip

Don’t keep your refrigerator colder than it needs to be.

Set your refrigerator temperature between 37-40°F and your freezer temperature between 0-5°F.

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YouthBuild Graduation

The end of the term for our YouthBuild Corpsmembers is finally here. Last Friday, this year’s YouthBuild program concluded its nine-month cycle with a graduation ceremony for the Class of 2012.

The MHYC family is incredibly proud of our YouthBuild Corpsmembers. This term, 22 Corpsmembers have earned their GEDs, 2 earned high school diplomas, 20 are moving on to higher education opportunities, and combined have served over 10,000 hours in service to our community. They have earned countless certifications in their field and we are pleased to see nine Corpsmembers already hard at work in new jobs. We are of course very happy to see these young men and women move on to bigger and better things, but at the same time, we are sad to see our family and friends leave.

We wish our graduates the best as they move on with their careers and educations and we know we will be seeing them again before too long. As the saying goes, “Once in YouthBuild, Always in YouthBuild.”

Below is a video featuring the highlights of this year’s graduation ceremony. Take a moment to celebrate their journey with us and be sure to leave a comment wishing our graduates well for the future.

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Weekly Energy Saving Tip

Wash only FULL loads of dishes and clothes.

When washing clothes, wash in cold water and use cold water detergent whenever possible.

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Corpsmember Spotlight: YouthBuild

As this year’s YouthBuild term draws to an end, we would like to take the opportunity to share the journey of one remarkable young Corpsmember, Eloy Martinez. I sat down with Eloy last week and he was kind enough to share his thoughts on the program.

During his term, Eloy completed over 450 service hours, earned his GED and was awarded an AmeriCorps scholarship of nearly $1400 for higher education. He also earned several certifications from the Building Performance Institute, the Environmental Protection Agency, OHSA, and PACT among others. Eloy served as an invaluable member of Leadership Council where he dutifully represented his crew and helped to organize many successful programs and events for MHYC.

We are all very proud of Eloy and his accomplishments over the last nine months. This is certainly one of the best YouthBuild graduating classes in recent memory. We would like to congratulate the YouthBuild Corpsmembers on all of their hard work during this term and we wish them the best after graduation!

Check back next week when we will have video clips and stories from tomorrow’s graduation!

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Corpsmembers of the Month: May

We’re back again with our new Corpsmember of the Month Awards for May! Each community meeting we select a Corpsmember from each crew who demonstrated outstanding work over the last month.

Our Corpsmembers of the Month are:

Rueben, Energy Crew

Kamen, Water Crew

Matthew, ACLC

Deondre, YouthBuild

These four Corpsmembers continue to work hard and go above and beyond to motivate their crews and spread a positive Corps culture. They regularly stay after hours to help their crew leaders with projects and never pass up an opportunity to take on new tasks. Congratulations to our newest Corpsmembers of the Month! Keep up the great work everyone and remember to check back next month for new awards.

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Weekly Energy Saving Tip

Are you thinking about getting a new appliance?
Here’s how to read the Energy Guide inside each new appliance:

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Gear Drive!

The 2012 Summer of Service kicks off on May 29 for Mile High Youth Corps – Colorado Springs (MHYC-CS). This field office will be sending four crews out to their job sites to begin their land conservation work. Three of the crews, the Marmots, the Bobcats, and the Hayman, are all camping crews: they will stay at their respective work sites for either five or 10 days at a time, all summer long. MHYC-CS advertises that everything is provided for the Corpsmembers during these hitches: food, uniforms, tools, training, transportation, and camping gear.  At the Colorado Springs Field office, there is a large storage closet filled with camping gear, but much of it is nearly worn beyond repair from years of hard use. This is where you come in.

Between May 14 and May 19, MHYC-CS is teaming up with Mountain Equipment Recyclers (a local business of Colorado Springs) to host a gear drive. Scour your garages, basements, and storage sheds for any camping gear that isn’t being used anymore. Instead of taking it to Goodwill or Salvation Army, drop it off at any of the Mile High Youth Corps locations or Mountain Equipment Recyclers (addresses and contact information are listed at the bottom of this post). Cash donations will be accepted as well, to purchase new or new-used camping gear with. Equipment especially needed:

• Tents
• Sleeping bags
• Camp chairs
• Sleeping pads
• Rain gear
• Backpacks
• Cooking equipment

If a tent has a small hole, we can patch it or if a chair doesn’t sit perfectly square, we can level it… But no unrepairable items, please. Otherwise, any cash or gear donations will be accepted and greatly appreciated. If any gear happens to be unusable to MHYC-CS, it will be donated to Mountain Equipment Recyclers on behalf of MHYC-CS. Once sold in the store, 50% of the profit will go to MHYC-CS.

One more thing! If you happen to be in Colorado Springs on Saturday, May 19, come into Mountain Equipment Recyclers between 10am and 2pm to donate, shop, or to just learn more about both organizations. Corpsmembers and other MHYC-CS staff will have a table set up with informational materials.

Drop Locations:

1. MHYC – Headquarters | 1801 Federal Blvd., Denver | 303-433-1206 | Contact: Melissa Stoneking or Kara Holwick

2. MHYC – East Colfax | 6740 E. Colfax Ave., Denver | 720-407-7281 | Contact: Michele Bishop

3. MHYC – Co. Springs | 1506 N. Hancock Ave., Co. Springs | 719-630-7421 | Contact: Kate Prestine

4. Mountain Equipment Recyclers | 1024 S. Tejon St., Co. Springs | 719-210-6427 | Contact: Mike Mazzola

*Mountain Equipment Recyclers, Inc. is a retail consignment store of high-quality outdoor equipment located in Colorado Springs. Gear includes camping, backpacking, skiing, snowboarding, hiking, cycling, running, climbing, fly fishing, canoes/kayaks, and any other outdoor activity associated with this beautiful state. For more information, check out: www.merecyclers.com.

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Summer Crews Announced!

Summer is just around the corner and our new crews are amped and ready to go! We’ve got a little info on what you can expect from our crews during their Summer of Service!

This season, we are going to have four amazing crews out of our Denver office:

The Trail Blazers are a sawyer crew that will be working on invasive species removal in the Denver Metro area. Then the crew will move up to the foothills to work on forest health and mitigation of wildfires like we saw last month. The Trail Blazers will be running chainsaws during the entire season so we wish them the best in keeping the summer injury and incident-free!

The Rock Climbers are a hand crew who will start their work this summer in Golden Gate State Park. They will begin with a 4 week fencing project and then bounce back between more fencing and some great trail maintenance projects.

The Path Finders are another hand crew who will be starting their summer off with the Rock Climbers in Golden Gate State Park. After a week of fence construction, The Path Finders will begin heavy maintenance at State Parks throughout the Front Range from Louisville to Conifer.

The Ridge Runners are our fourth crew and our only camping crew out of Denver this summer. The Ridge Runners will be camping in remote areas for 10 days at a time and continuing the trail construction work that our Colorado Springs team worked on last summer.

Each of the Denver crews will have 3-4 ACLCs (pictured above) who will serve as Assistant Crew Leaders in the field.

Mile High Youth Corps – Colorado Springs is also hosting four stellar crews this summer: three camping crews, who will all camp for 5 or 10 days at a time, and one brand new day crew in Pueblo. Photos soon to come!

1. The Bobcats will be our saw and trail camping crew. They will spend most of their time in remote regions of the Southern Front Range. They will be thinning forest with CUSP, spraying to eliminate invasive tamarisk in Trinidad State Park for two weeks, building trail in Bosque del Oso, and more.

2. The Marmots will be our standard camping crew. They will perform a variety of conservation work, mainly trail maintenance, all over the Southern Front Range; around the Canon City area, Florissant Fossil Beds (Post-to-Parks), and beyond.

3. The Hayman Crew will return to the Hayman burn area for yet another year of restoration. They will be working alongside Rocky Mountain Field Institute and CUSP all summer to help bring the area back to its pre-wildfire state.

4. The Steel City Day Crew is a very new development: a day crew in Pueblo, consisting of only local, Pueblo youth. If all goes well with them this year, MHYC’s presence and influence will continue to grow in the Pueblo area. This crew will work for the City of Pueblo for four weeks, then the County of Pueblo for two weeks. Specific projects are pending, but work could include laying sod to building fence to planting trees.

 

We hope all of our crews have a safe and productive summer! Of course, we will be doing our best to bring you more pictures and stories from the field as these crews work tirelessly throughout the summer. Keep an eye out for posts about our Summer crews with the “Summer of Service” tag!

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Weekly Energy Saving Tip

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

When you are heating up your queso dip for today’s fiestas, use the microwave instead of the stove.

Microwaves use 2/3 less energy than stoves to heat small items.

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GreenFax & Denver Energy Challenge

The Denver Energy Challenge recently put together a great video about the GreenFax Inititative featuring MHYC’s GreenFax crew!

Check out the video below:

For more info on our GreenFax crew’s amazing work and the small businesses we serve, check out our recent post here.

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