AmeriCorps; Environmental Stewardship

Southern Oregon is a land filled with environmental history. Our lives have been enriched by majestic mountains filled with a variety of trees along with streams and river's running together filled with Salmon, Steelhead, and Trout. This land has been tamed so much over the last 50 years, that many concerned citizens have come together to develop agencies and non-profit organizations to help preserve our living history and our connection to the environment with-in Southern Oregon.

One such agency is "The Umpqua Watershed" in Roseburg Oregon. Those who serve with Umpqua Watershed dedicate their time to the protection and restoration of the eco-system of the Umpqua Valley and beyond. They manage the ridges of land and the waters that flow through and around the Umpqua River. Serving at The Umpqua Watershed is Michael Rooney an AmeriCorps VISTA that for the past 3 months has partnered up with two other VISTA's; Chris Gore with the "Time Exchange", and Jake Eyre with "UCAN-Teen Leadership Program" to organize a service project in South Douglas County; each of them are a apart of the UCAN VISTA Coalition. Together they each brought something to the table that in the end benefited the community as a whole.

Stan Petrowski, who is the owner of Singing Falls Ranch, called upon Michael Rooney to help restore some of his land. Evasive plants and trees had overtaken the property and without proper "thinning" (removing some trees so that others can grow) a fire could come through the land and burn more quickly. Knowing that more hands are better than one, Michael called upon his fellow VISTA's and together there came about a great service project.

Michael's organization provided the land, Jake provided the muscle work through his Teen Leaders, and Chris provided the opportunity for the teens to sign up with the "Time Exchange" (pattern of reciprocal service exchange that uses units of time as currency) and bank their hours of service.

On the day of service, Michael had arranged for 3 Tiller Forest Rangers to meet us on location and teach the teens and VISTA’s about the land we were going to work on and why our service that day was so important. Within a matter of 4 hours; 15 people (10 of those being teen leaders in South County) came together and thinned out almost an acre of land; trees were thinned, branches were cut and stacked for future mulching and the logs where hauled off the main part of the land and stacked. Everyone had a wonderful time and most importantly we all learned that by serving and working together we were helping to preserve our own living history through the restoration of our environment in Southern Oregon.

As the Team Leader it was wonderful to see my team come together to develop and foster a sense of community service with the teens in South County, and build sustainable community relationships for future service projects to come.