This month marked the beginning of project work for our Summer of Service crews. To help give you a better perspective of what the Summer of Service entails, I have combined a few numbers to make it clearer.
12 weeks of service
13 crews
106 youth employed as Corpsmembers
34 youth are chain-saw certified
25 (and counting) project sites across Denver and the Southern Front Range
Our Colorado Springs crews have completed orientation and hit the ground bright and early. Garret on the H1N1 (Hayman 1) Crew said camaraderie was really building between both Hayman crews (H1N1 & Gary and the Sunshine Kids) because they were working together. The two crews are building a brand new dirt bike trail in the Hayman fire area. StilhJacks (Sawyers) are in Ute Lake and the fourth crew (Anteres’) is doing some technical day work at Rainbow Falls in Manitou Springs. The Canon City crew hits the ground next Monday for a grand total of 52 Corpsmembers.
Some of the crews will be working in a variety of locations, like the RockClimber crew who will be doing fire mitigation in various state parks or the RidgeRunner crew who will spend their summer alternating between chain-sawing an invasive species of trees and weeding noxious plants at wildlife refuges. Other crews will be working in one location the whole summer. For instance, the Mile High Youth Corps camping crew, the GateKeepers, will be working on a long-term trail project in Golden Gate Canyon State Park the entire summer. And finally the nine Corpsmembers of the Travis Kubiak Angler Education program will spend their summer teaching children how to fish and the importance of environmental education at a variety of clinics at different lakes, and reservoirs throughout the state.
~ Veronica Solis, Denver and Sylvia Sedrak, Colorado Springs
The summer of 2010 was my first summer working for Mile High Youth Corps-Colorado Springs. During that term of service I learned a substantial amount about tools, trail building, rock wall building, corridor clearing, tree removal and transplanting, etc. One of the most valuable skills I obtained was better leadership skills. Currently working my second year with MHYC I am more confident and able to apply the skills I learned last summer to help lead and teach new Corpsmembers proper techniques and ways to do a specific job. MHYC is a phenomenal program to stay in shape, learn valuable skills, earn a stipend; but most of all helping improve our environment at the same time.
~ Janari McCampbel- Anteres Crew-Colorado Springs
Land conservation work has finally started for ACLC’s!
After three and a half months of energy work in homes, ACLC’s are finally embarking on their land conservation projects… and we couldn’t be more excited! We have been divided into five separate crews and just received our additional Summer of Service crew members that will be working with us through mid August. This past week has been orientation, and starting June 1st, we are on our respective project sites doing work!
With the arrival of all the new corps members, I have had the pleasure of meeting many new people as well as getting to know my sawyer crew, the Trailblazers.
The Trailblazers (woot woot!), along with the 2 other sawyer crews, spent the past week at an S-212 chainsaw certification class. After day one in the classroom learning about the safety, technique, maintenance and purpose of saw usage, we were able to quickly transition into day two. It was during this second day that we were truly able to get a feel for the saws and actually get our hands dirty with sawing and swamping. Despite a rainy afternoon and wet gear, we all stuck with it and got some great practice in.
After long days of cert runs on days three and four, all of us left the site with our S-212 certifications and ready for our summer projects. And as it turns out, we are all naturally amazing sawyers!
Needless to say, this is going to be a great summer; we have amazing crew members joining, spirited and knowledgeable crew leaders, and well planned projects. We have set the bar high for ourselves and can’t wait to get started!
~Lindsay Hill, ACLC 2011
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As 2012 comes to a close we would like to reflect on the amazing accomplishments of our Corpsmembers. All our Corpsmembers were eligible to receive AmeriCorps Education Awards upon completing their terms. The total amount earned by our Corpsmembers this year totaled $$253,36.. This is one of the many achievements of our Corpsmembers. See below for many more statistics that make up only a snapshot of the work that took place at Mile High Youth Corps in 2012.
