The NorthWoods Stewardship Center has had a long-standing partnership with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, managing Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) crews at National Wildlife Refuges across New England since 1999. Nearly 20 years later, the partnership continues to offer great potential at new locations.
This year, NorthWoods will manage a YCC Crew at the Misissquoi National Wildlife Refuge in Swanton, VT and a YCC Crew Leader team at the Moosehorn NWR in Charlotte, ME. These crews are in addition to our current YCC crews at the Silvio O. Conte National Fish & Wildlife Refuge Nulhegan Basin Division (Brunswick, VT), Pondicherry Division (Whitefield, NH), Fort River Division (Hadley, MA), and Springfield Community Crew (Springfield, MA) as well as the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge (Westbrook, CT) and the Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge (Errol, NH). This partnership allows us to further our conservation work across New England, now employing 36 high school-aged youth and 17 leaders in five states.
In addition, NorthWoods has recruited and selected 2 Shorebird, 2 Island Keeper and 2 Rosate and Common Tern interns at the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge in Westbrook CT. These individuals will help monitor shorebird and tern breeding activity, protect breeding pairs and their habitat from human disturbance, and educate island visitors, all while earning college credit!
While NorthWoods remains committed to serving the communities of the Northeast Kingdom and Northern New Hampshire, this partnership with the USFWS allows our organization to expand the reach and impact of its programing. Our effort to connect local kids with meaningful work in their communities has translated well into many of the communities we now are now a part of outside of the NEK. Participants in our YCC crews earn the same valuable, hands-on, conservation-based employment skills while learning about the natural and cultural environment where they live, not to mention a well-deserved pay check!