— from Skylar Dalusio, Kayleigh Horton, and Maggie Tombs with Mary Gropp —
The Orcas Island Youth Conservation Corps is made up of a group of kids who are interested in conserving our environment, and in doing service projects on the island. This week, to take action, we gathered on Wednesday at Buck Park. The project for the day was to re-paint the steel rail around the Skate Park to help keep the steel from rusting. We started with a lesson on painting, then worked in groups with rollers and brushes. We found out that it was a lot more complicated than it looked at the beginning, but we got about 2/3 of the rail completed before lunch.
Marcia West, Orcas Parks and Rec Director thanked us for all our work helping to clean up Buck Park. After lunch we participated in leadership and team building activities with Alice Hibberd of San Juan Island. Several kids commented that the exercises “will help you trust your team members,” “will help me express my feelings toward certain activities,” and “will give me confidence to try new things.”
On Thursday we worked with the San Juan Preservation Trust and the San Juan County Noxious Weed Board at the Hanson Preserve near Orcas Landing. The project was pulling a lot, and we mean a lot, of Scotch broom. We ended up with two towering piles of scotch broom, at least six feet tall and ten feet wide. To do this we used big orange weed wrenches of different sizes, loppers, and hand saws. We cleared all of this under the scorching sun, working as a team for five hours.
During our morning break we took time to hear about the large wetland on the property, and its importance in the watershed. Dean Dougherty, Stewardship Director of the SJPT commented, “I am incredibly pleased with the progress we’ve made today! We’ve gotten rid of about 75% of the broom that has been growing here for more than 15 years.” Jason Ontjes of the SJC Noxious Weed Control Program said, “The OIYCC has done a tremendous job of clearing and eradicating this invasive, alien shrub from the Hanson Preserve, a place that is highly significant because of its rare wetland species.”
What a fabulous effort, great team, so thankful to you!
Great to hear that these youngsters are taking the responsibility to care for the beautiful island environment they will inherit, and that they also have fun at the same time.