Student Conservation Corps benefits Island parks

Through the ferns, poison oak, ivy, alder and maple branches, you may have caught glimpses of some of the young men and women in red T-shirts working to rid the island’s parks and trails of invasive species.

It’s the “SCoCo” crew, or so says the large, white, block letters on their shirts that show them to be members of the Bainbridge park district’s Student Conservation Corps.

During an outing earlier this month, all of those present appeared to be hard at work, down in the dirt, scratching at the forest floor, ripping weeds and wrangling ivy by the root. Except for the occasional breather for someone leaning against a tree — headphones in, looking for the perfect summer soundtrack on an IPhone — all hands were on deck.

Emily Helgeson is a volunteer specialist with the Bainbridge Island Metropolitan Park &Recreation District. It’s Helgeson’s duty to oversee the young workers, who she says are doing an excellent job.

“These guys are rock stars; there’s no slackers,” Helgeson said.

In years past, Helgeson said other groups have required more motivation to keep the workers in line. But not this one.

“This year I feel like I’m just one of the crew and I’m just working alongside everybody,” she said.

Helgeson is in her second full year of running the conservation corps, and while she also works to organize trails maintenance crews and other work parties, Helgeson says that SCoCo is her favorite.

“It takes the most work and has the most reward,” she said. “Even though the session is only 12 days, I start working on it in March or April.”

Helgeson gets to know her workers early-on during a work party which serves as an interview of sorts, to determine if the participants are able to handle the type of work required in the conservation corps.

It’s tough stuff, fighting the never-ending battle against ever-spreading invasive plants that upend Washington state’s homegrown ecology.

Helgeson also said that for most of the participants, SCoCo will be their first job, which in itself presents a few challenges.

“Trying to get 20 high-schoolers’ paperwork, who have never had a job before, is a lot of work,” Helgeson said. “Maybe they’ve done landscaping for a neighbor, worked for their parents, but they’ve never filled out a W4 or an I9. They don’t know their Social Security number. So it’s their first official job.”

Tucked into the trees at Blakely Harbor Park, yanking on a particularly troublesome vine was Connor Sanford.

“Ivy is the worst,” Sanford said. “I’m not a huge environmentalist or anything, but I do care a bit. I’d like to see our native plants stay around for awhile and this seems to be one of the worst enemies for it.”

Sanford, 16, said the Student Conservation Corps was a good fit for him when he was looking for a summer job to put a little extra cash in his pocket.

“It’s a good first job; they make it easy to apply and you learn the ropes of how applying to other jobs works,” he said.

Sanford said he would definitely recommend the job to anyone looking for a good summer gig.

“If you’re a teenager looking for a job, go to the work parties, it’s a great thing to do. It teaches you some good manual labor,” he said. “A lot of kids just sit around and they don’t do much. This gets them outside.”

Dominic Painter said the job meant more than a little summer cash.

“I wanted a summer job and I wanted to work outside,” Painter said.

And paychecks aside, Painter said it was another type of green that drew him to the conservation corps.

“It feels good to give back to the environment because it’s a resource that we have here on the island that I really appreciate,” he said.

Also tucked under the trees beside Sanford and Painter was Weston Scott. Scott said he appreciates the feeling of accomplishment he gets at the end of a long day of hard work.

“It’s good work; you get a real sense of satisfaction looking back on the stuff you cleared out,” Scott said.

No doubt. So far, the group has cleared ivy from 695 trees on the island.

And then, there’s the benefits package.

“You also get to see a lot of really nice parks on the island,” Scott added.