Youth Programs
Alternative Spring Break Program
The PCTA’s Alternative Spring Break Program celebrated its second year in March 2009. Students from Georgia Institute of Technology visited Southern California to spend their Spring Break working and hiking on the PCNST. PCTA staff led the crew of ten students in conducting trail work including berm removal, rock check dam and step construction, and installation of drainage features. These college-aged students contributed 567 hours of volunteer service to the PCNST. After all their hard work, the students hit the PCNST for three days of backpacking through Southern California’s Laguna Mountains.
Northwest Service Academy
The Northwest Service Academy’s (NWSA) AmeriCorps program continued to be a strong partner for the PCTA. To start their 2009 season, 12 team leaders from NWSA, which is based out of Trout Lake, Washington, traveled to Southern California for six weeks of trail skills training. During that time, PCTA staff rotated through to teach the new team leaders not only how to recognize and repair trail maintenance issues, but also provided the new team leaders with valuable skills on how to lead their team and volunteers both on the trail and in camp. The training concluded with the team leaders hosting a weekend volunteer project under the supervision of PCTA staff. The team leaders led twenty Hispanic students from inner city L.A.’s Environmental Charter High School (ECHS). For many of the ECHS students, this project was their first exposure to the outdoors, being on a trail and camping under the stars. Following the project, ECHS committed to expanding their volunteering from two projects to four projects a year. This project is a prime example of PCTA’s ability to bring together various partners on a project and to reconnect youth with nature.
After the spring training, two NWSA AmeriCorps teams started their season working on the PCNST. The PCTA’s volunteer program leverages the NWSA crews in a unique way – utilizing these technically-trained corps crews to provide training in trail crew leadership and advanced trail construction techniques as well as hands-on guidance for local volunteers. By training volunteers with the valuable skills needed to help protect and maintain recreational trails, they in turn give countless volunteer hours to maintain not only the PCNST but also trails maintained by partnering organizations. These local community-based volunteers form the backbone of the PCTA’s volunteer program.
ARRA Youth Corps Projects
Along the entire PCNST, PCTA Trail Operations staff spent the last six months of 2009 laying the foundation for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funded youth corps programs in 2010 and 2011. Through a Challenge Cost Share Agreement, the PCTA is providing technical oversight and staff to assist in the completion of backlogged maintenance utilizing youth corps crews and volunteers. Not only will this work leave the PCNST tread in better shape than it has been in decades but this program will introduce new generations to outdoor-based resource management jobs. The projects associated with this employment opportunity are fulfilling the intent of the ARRA by creating meaningful jobs for young adults and encouraging long-term community service. Within the federal land-managing agencies a large portion of their employees are reaching retirement age. As a result, these agencies have been looking to diversify their staff by age for the last several years. The hands-on experience that the PCTA is providing through this program will offer corps members insight to agency employment opportunities and will create job skills for crew members to potentially continue working in natural resource management.
