The Student Conservation Association (SCA) is a national nonprofit organization founded in 1957 to restore and protect America's public lands and preserve them for future generations.
SCA members are high school and college-age volunteers who build trails, restore habitat, guide interpretive hikes, study plants and animals, and participate in many other conservation-related projects.
For the past four years, SCA Seattle's Conservation Leadership Corps has started off their year at Camp Long. The Conservation Leadership Corps (CLC) exposes high school students to nature and the outdoors by combining restoration service work and recreation in Seattle area greenspaces. Through hands on volunteer projects, CLC teaches leadership, teamwork, backcountry and wilderness skills while students complete more than 100 hours of service learning. This weekend, Camp Long again hosts the CLC Orientation which includes service project stations which introduce the skills and knowledge to be gained throughout the year.
CLC members commit to one weekend a month and one evening meeting a month. Members can participate with CLC for one to three years, taking on more responsibility as they gain experience. One member, Jaya Ghosh, received a Neighborhood Matching Fund award from the Department of Neighborhoods and helped repair a segment of trail on the lower loop at Camp Long. She led the project for her peers and completed the project in October 2007.
Some of their most recent projects include:
* Planting 100 trees along the Duwamish River to prevent polluted runoff into Puget Sound
* Removing non-native invasive plants, such as English Ivy, Herb Robert and Scotch broom that threaten area native plants
* Outdoor Olympics: Students competed in fun and educational sessions that taught map and compass skills, how to set up a camp, lighting a camp-stove, and making dinner, followed by well deserved social time
* Carrying out riparian restoration at Yesler Creek, which runs through Seattle and into the Sound
* Teaching elementary students about environmental stewardship
"I learned that one person really can make a difference!" -- Aisha Pasha
Quotes and information from the website of Student Conservation Association www.thesca.com
