2009 Leadership Program

In an effort to promote upward mobility for our summer Green Team members, the Conservancy has launched its first ever Leadership Program to teach leadership and refined parks maintenance skills to former Green Team participants and other qualified urban youth. The Leadership Program meets during the school year on Wednesday and Thursday after school and on Saturdays. It is difficult to find candidates for Green Team crew leader positions that have experience working with urban youth and parks maintenance skills, so the Conservancy has decided to create these candidates.

With 10 participants in our inaugural year, Director of Youth Programs, Kate England, has set about teaching these students leadership skills, parks maintenance skills and job preparedness. Thus far, the Leadership Program has had leadership skills lessons on community involvement, verbal and non-verbal communication, conflict resolution, leadership styles, etc. as well as parks skills lessons on invasive species identification, trail work, constructing water bars and swales, pruning, gardening and plant identification, soil amendment administration, etc. Our participants are learning quickly and are developing a connection to the Emerald Necklace that can only come from putting hard work into the restoration and upkeep of these historic parks.

It is our hope that as a result of their experience during the school year we will be able to hire some of our Leadership Program participants to be assistant crew leaders for the 2010 Green Team. By the end of the Leadership Program, these students will possess a wealth of knowledge, both job skills and parks related, that will serve them well as they search for jobs in the future. Our Leadership Program participants are continuing the work of the Green Team and working to prepare themselves for greater things; their efforts will be essential to the continued success of the Conservancy’s Green Team.

Leadership Program 2009 Photos