Green River Preserve and AmeriCorps Anne Izard Mead and Mi ssy Izard Sc henck Working at camp, we often feel like we need forty-eight hours in a day, three extra hands, a winning lottery ticket, and the ability to be in two places at once. As camp professionals, we are always adding to our lists while multitasking and brainstorming the next fabulous idea. But camp people also have the trait of being resourceful and looking outside the box. When we did this at Green River Preserve (GRP) three years ago, we discovered AmeriCorps Project Conserve. Project Conserve According to the Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy (CMLC), Project Conserve was founded in 2004 “to respond to the growing conservation needs in western North Carolina. The program focuses on collaboration with nonprofit organizations, community groups, and local governments to provide service throughout the region” (2013). Project Conserve is staffed through AmeriCorps interns who spend a year working with a local nonprofit conservation organization identified through CMLC. Project Conserve serves western North Carolina by building stronger, more educated, and more involved communities that understand the threats to their local environment and are equipped with the tools and resources to take direct conservation action. Project Conserve ensures significant 46 CAMPING magazine • March/April 2014 opportunities for the community to engage in conservation activities through volunteering. Through the efforts of communities and the direct service of AmeriCorps Project Conserve members, the ultimate hope is to increase the amount of land and habitat conserved, protect and enhance water quality, promote local food and agriculture, and support energy conservation throughout the region (AmeriCorps Project Conserve, 2013). How GRP Utilizes Project Conserve GRP is both a natural and unnatural fit for Project Conserve and AmeriCorps. Natural because we are a nonprofit with a mission striving to respond to the “growing conservation needs” in our local and global community. Unnatural because we are a summer camp and the first in our region to collaborate with AmeriCorps. Together, we are an organization that fits a niche. In our first year with Project Conserve, we were able to further develop our farmto table program. Catrina Dillard, our Project Conserve service member, worked with our farm managers to plan, plant, harvest, and water plants; take care of chickens; teach campers about sustainable agriculture; and write grants. Catrina also helped GRP expand our outreach efforts in the community. One of our goals as an organization was to familiarize community members with our organization. One of Catrina’s outreach efforts included hosting monthly community hikes on the preserve with one of our professional naturalists. With Catrina’s help, we were also able to develop a children’s naturalist backpack project for the library, which we had wanted to do for several years but for which we could not find the time. Catrina made it possible for twenty-five naturalist backpacks to be available for young people to check out and learn about the land in their own backyard through the Hendersonville County Library. Not only did Catrina set up the partnership with the library, she also designed an interactive nature journal to include in the backpacks, along with tools (binoculars, magnifying glass, etc.) young naturalists would want to use in the nature. Now in our second year with Project Conserve, our AmeriCorps volunteer, Charlotte Pate, focuses primarily on continuing to build our community outreach programs and to initiate or assist with new ones. In addition to AmeriCorps Project Conserve community volunteer days ranging from trail building to river clean ups, Charlotte assists the farm managers with planting, harvesting, weeding, and
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