Updates & Stories

Ah, vacation. Such a beautiful word. Conservation Corps gave us 10 days off over the Fourth of July holiday this year, and since we just can't get enough of each other, my co-workers and I decided to go on a road trip together. Read More

Take a moment to picture a scene... it's a sprawling prairie, part of the Midwestern landscape as it was a long time ago. Tall native grasses sing that song of swishing blades in the wind. In the distance, perhaps there are bison. Now imagine the people who would live there, and imagine yourself as one of them. Most likely you would see a homesteader, a man or woman who came to start anew in such a place.  Read More

During my time with Conservation Corps we have worked entirely with plants. We’ve cut buckthorn and cleared firebreaks, planted natives and picked weeds. It’s been great learning to identify things we haven’t seen or heard of before but one thing we have all been missing is wildlife. That said, we have recently had the opportunity to rescue some animals!  Read More

No tree is sacred. These were the instructions national game refuge staff gave my crew during a ten-day work stint in eastern North Dakota. Staring up into the branches of an enormous cottonwood, that claim reverberated dubiously between my ears. After carrying my chainsaw and a backpack full of fuel and oil a half-mile under the hot Dakota sun, the shade of the cottonwood grove engulfed me like a cool towel.  Read More

A week for the water trails crew is quite a bit different than the other crews located in the Central District. Learn more in Melissa Gearman's photo blog post. Read More

KFAI’s Ryan Dawes did a great job on this short audio documentary about the Corps, as part of the station’s MinneCulture program. Give it a listen! Read More

Two Corps crews based in Iowa are currently serving on disaster response deployments, returning later this week. Read More

In mid-June, the Polk County Iowa crew helped facilitate a fishing derby for 165 senior citizens at Easter Lake in Des Moines. Some participants had not fished in decades. Crew members helped people bait and cast their lines, identify and measure their fish, and repair broken rods and reels.  Read More

REI's outdoor patio was a busy place as three dozen volunteers gathered on a sunny Friday in June to make almost 80 dozen seed bombs. Read More

More than 140 volunteers, staff and corps members turned out for the 24th annual Adopt-A-River cleanup at several sites along the Mississippi River near Red Rock Road, just north of the Waucouta Bridge.  Read More