Celebrating AmeriCorps Week 2023
=Happy AmeriCorps Week! To all of our Members, Alumni, Project Partners, Donors, and Community Supporters, we thank you for your service and dedication to helping us get things done for our communities. Click here to learn more about how you can celebrate and promote AmeriCorps!
Project Life - Instagram Takeover
From left to right: Jane, Nick, Maria, Daisy, Ally, and Haley Smith from the Ozark Land Trust at Schulze Nature Preserve.
This week, Program Staff Jane Kersch & Nick Ciaramitaro had the opportunity to go out into the field with a crew serving with the Ozark Land Trust, a brand new project partner. The Ozark Land Trust has dozens of projects protecting more than 30,000 acres of land throughout the Ozark region. It has been instrumental in protecting many natural and geological features such as waterfalls, caves, springs, bluffs, forests, prairies, glades, rivers, and wetlands. OLT also preserves urban greenspace, agricultural lands, historic places, and sensitive ecological sites!
Head over to our highlighted Instagram story to see what a day in the field is like!
Alumni Spotlights
From front to back: Ellis, Brett, Grant, Dylan, Daisy, and Zane on a glade restoration project at Don Robinson State Park.
"Before I joined AmeriCorps St Louis about two months ago, I had never even started a saw, let alone used one to bring down towering cedars and snags. Previously, I thought "felling" was simply something that happened to me on occasion when my foot would clumsily snag a tree root on a hike. When I thought of chainsaws and axes, I pictured Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, and many other cartoonish images, not myself or any of my other teammates.
Despite this unfamiliarity, I've been grateful to learn a new skill and grateful for the opportunity to serve in Missouri. The woods are densely packed with trees in a cozy way that is unfamiliar to my Texan eyes, and I am comforted and elated by the hum of the chainsaws and the laughter of my teammates. Slowly, my face cuts are getting better, and I'm beginning to feel confident and find excitement in buzzing through the branches and stacking of burn piles.
Although I'm not sure if I will be able to return to our work sites to view the fruits of our labor, I'm happy and hopeful that the glades we're working on will slowly return to their natural state. In the meantime, I'm content to continue serving, learning, and developing new skills in St Louis, in the glades, in the forests, and wherever this team will take me next."
- A great story by Zane Ortega, AmeriCorps Member from Corpus Christi, TX