Archive

Finding the Switch

Being on a Youth Outdoors crew in South Minneapolis is like walking into a dark room and not knowing where the light switch is. You cautiously open the door, reach across all the obvious areas of the wall, and hope that the house was built after 1925. Then… finally as you are crouch behind a desk with your hand between stacks of books, you finally find the switch. And “aha!” you get it. Something amazing happens. Or literally, the light comes on. Read More

Enter to win: Our Time photo contest

Conservation Corps Minnesota & Iowa is holding a photo contest – called Our Time – to showcase the incredible work our corps members… Read More

East Coast deployment continues

Our final team of corps members deployed to the East Coast, from left: Courtney Kinder, Ross Beazell, Kristina Pechacek, Hannah… Read More

Where Are They Now? Jane Sunram

Though Jane Sunram served in the Corps more than 30 years ago, she still remembers her summer in the Young Adult Conservation Corps as a great opportunity that included hard work and changed her relationship with nature. Her crew was based in cabins at Lake Itasca, working days in the field. Read More

Summer Youth Corps needs you

The Summer Youth Corps (SYC) is looking to hire qualified high school students from across the state and needs your help to get the word… Read More

First Weeks: Blue Smurf Pee and the Coolest Work Ever

For our crew's first project this year, we basal-sprayed buckthorn at a section of Fort Snelling State Park. The project was an ideal introduction to a typical day in Conservation Corps. Gridding allowed us to familiarize ourselves while becoming equally acquainted with the shiny bark and spiny outline of our most common foe. As we stepped from sapling to sapling, bent over, visually focusing on each silver stem and mentally trying to focus on the riddles we shared with each other to pass the time, we occasionally came across blue patches in the snow near or beneath rabbit droppings. Read More