Maryland Conservation Corps paves the way on state park trails and way more
With the towering Chesapeake Bay Bridge behind them, the dozen or so young people standing on the beach may not appear grand or monumental, but the extent of the Maryland Conservation Corps becomes clear after hearing about the full group’s efforts in state parks.
Forty corps members and eight crew leaders are working on natural resource management projects in state parks across Maryland. On this particular day, three parks were the beneficiaries of the labor, according to Corps Director Sara Marcinak.
At Assateague State Park on the Eastern Shore, 4,000 dune grasses were set to go in the ground to aid with shoreline restoration and help protect against coastal flooding. At Tuckahoe State Park, also on the Shore, a cohort of less than a dozen was finishing construction on the last 200 yards of a new trail. And as for the group that started the day in the nature center at Sandy Point State Park and posed for a photo near the Bay Bridge, they worked to cut back invasive plants, including brambles and oriental bittersweet.
Last program year, the organization treated over 7,000 trees in Western Maryland, preserving and protecting the trees from invasive insects, and staff estimate over 60,000 trees have been preserved in the state with the help of conservation corps members over the past decade or so.
“It feels so good to be part of the program that is saving Maryland’s natural forests,” said Annie O’Grady, a program officer with the Corps, while walking back through a mud-covered trail lined with some oaks and protective tree tubes in the Corcoran Environmental Study Area near Sandy Point.
She’s one of the veterans of the 40-year old program managed by the Maryland Park Service, but for current corps member Jenny Ha of Hagerstown, the program that is supported too by the national service agency, AmeriCorps (which is celebrating its 30th year), is still a new idea.
“A whole new world of information opened up to me,” said Ha, an alumna of Hagerstown Community College, describing her experience working with the corps this year after learning about the program for 17-to-25-year-olds during an environmental policy class while in school.
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Maryland Conservation Corps members work in state parks
One of those new experiences of growth for Ha was with how to use a gas-powered chainsaw.
“The first time I tried it at chainsaw training, I actually ended up crying because it was so nerve-wracking,” said Ha, who describes herself as someone with an associate’s degree in environmental studies that had not previously spent much time outside. Now, she’s serving on a crew of six at Patapsco Valley State Park in Baltimore and Howard counties, cleaning up trails, checking water quality and completing projects across Maryland’s other state parks on occasion.
During an interview in the nature center at Sandy Point, she credited the team dynamic for helping her to learn how to use the chainsaw a few months after her initial tearful encounter.
“With them giving me support, I was able to make my first pie cut with a gas-powered chainsaw,” said Ha, describing a technique used to fell trees.
“It was a very ugly pie cut, but it still worked nonetheless,” she said.
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AmeriCorps CEO calls Maryland department ‘cutting edge’
AmeriCorps CEO Michael Smith was not referring to pie cuts on trees when he called Maryland “cutting edge.”
He was referring to the new Maryland Department of Service and Civic Innovation under the leadership of Secretary Paul Monteiro and created by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore last year. Decades old programs like the Maryland Conservation Corps now fall under Monteiro’s purview.
“The beauty of our department is we’re building on a strong foundation,” said Monteiro, “a foundation that has been set by programs like the (Maryland Conservation Corps) we’re visiting today and 30 years of AmeriCorps.”
The secretary of the state’s newest department sat for an interview at Sandy Point less than a year after he was picked as its leader and about at the mid-point of the pilot cohort for the state’s nascent Service Year Option program for recent high school graduates.
“Where we are building, we’re doing it thoughtfully where we’re complementing, we’re not competing,” he said.
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American Climate Corps gets head start with Maryland program
Programs like the one Ha is participating in could be used as a complement to an idea put forward by the president’s administration last September called the American Climate Corps.
The initiative to train more than 20,000 Americans in “clean energy, conservation and climate resilience-related skills” already has a head start with programs like the Maryland Conservation Corps.
“We currently have about 15,000 AmeriCorps members that are working in various climate-related fields,” said Smith, in an interview in the nature center at Sandy Point. Participants in the Maryland Conservation Corps, some wearing shirts with the state corps logo on one shirt sleeve and the AmeriCorps logo on the other, receive a federal Segal AmeriCorps Education award upon completing their year of service to pay for educational expenses. It’s a boon for the young people, who earn a bi-weekly living allowance of approximately $1,146.07 minus taxes.
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At the nature center, Smith told the Maryland Conservation Corps members of the president’s plans, as announced in this month’s State of the Union address, to triple the number of American Climate Corps members in the next decade.
“Coming next year, there could be Maryland Climate Corps, American Climate Corps members,” said Smith, during the interview, “We’re going to be knitting several programs together.”
He noted in the four weeks after last September’s launch, 50,000 people signed up expressing interested in joining the American Climate Corps.
At the state level, where the new service program had about twice the number of applications as open spots last year, the secretary said the issues of the day require a wider civic participation.
“The issues we’re trying to tackle, climate change alone,” he said, “it’s going to take everyone.”
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For Ha, her entryway to the Maryland Conservation Corps came not from an AmeriCorps ad or from the new Maryland Department of Service and Civic Innovation, but through a visit from someone with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources who came to Hagerstown Community College for Earth Day. She said she would “absolutely” recommend the program.
“It really does give me joy to just be out, meet people, and see that my work is helping those around me,” she said.
Dwight A. Weingarten is an investigative reporter, covering the Maryland State House and state issues. He can be reached at dweingarten@gannett.com or on Twitter at @DwightWeingart2.
This article originally appeared on Salisbury Daily Times: AmeriCorps-sponsored Maryland Conservation Corps helps in state parks
