Green Corp is growing futures and communities

Green Corps: Growing Futures, Growing Communities

The Green Corp’s mission includes teens from Northeast Ohio.

By Cherise Kent, Green Corps Coordinator

While learning about all their summer would entail, interns took a moment to enjoy the gardens and the Rachael Hayes exhibit at Cleveland Botanical Garden.

A New Day

Outside, birds were chirping their morning songs. Inside the Cleveland Botanical Garden, the halls were still quiet. Yet, groggy high schoolers milled about as they prepared for their workday at Holden’s Long Science Center. This group of teens came to us from the Cleveland School of Science and Medicine, the Cleveland School of Arts, Rhodes High School and Shaw High School. They opted to spend the summer enhancing their scientific thinking skills while working in Holden’s labs. Cariana T. calculated leaves’ gas exchange rates. Meanwhile, Christine N. worked with soil ecologists to identify mycorrhizal fungi on tree roots. At the same time, Victoria J. learned to extract DNA from specimens while with the Evolutionary Ecology lab, as six other interns record ephemerals’ phenological data in Working Woods. Their experiences during the summer 2022 program exemplified Green Corps’ reimagined mission — to grant teens a glimpse into career possibilities within green industries they didn’t even know to consider.

Reimagining

Known for guiding teens in growing and selling tasty tomatoes, delicious greens and value-added products like zesty salsa, Green Corps has incited teens’ zeal for plants and the local food economy for 25 years. During that time, more than 1,000 youth workers increased their neighbors’ access to food by employing newly learned agricultural abilities and developing competency in 21st Century soft skills like collaboration, communication and critical thinking. In 2019, Holden was presented with the opportunity to celebrate Green Corps’ accomplishments, in addition to evaluating the program’s structure and outcomes, when four of the six farms were closed. Ensuing conversations unveiled opportunities to further integrate youth into Holden; to facilitate additional career exploration activities; and to honor community partners’ desire for youth to gain work experience. Those objectives became the foundation for the summer 2022 program, which connected 17 high schoolers with 12 Holden departments for 90 hours of mentorship and skill development over five weeks. In addition to fostering work-based learning within Holden’s Horticulture department — as Green Corps has traditionally done — interns benefitted from experiential learning in Guests Services, Events, Animal Care, Development, Research, Academic Programs, Conservation and the Libraries. Green Corps now strives to connect youth to the range of career paths represented at Holden in green industries, nonprofit administration and the museum industry.

Growing Green Futures

When asked during interviews about the responsibilities undertaken by Holden’s staff, most Green Corps applicants proffer that employees spend time transplanting, weeding, watering and mulching plants. Through participation in Green Corps, interns become knowledgeable and involved in the scope of work that is accomplished throughout the organization, which also includes calculating, connecting, collecting, creating, designing, educating, ideating, inventorying, relating, researching, sustaining and welcoming. This paid work experience enables teens to expand

their conception on work accomplished in public gardens and conservation- focused organizations, while highlighting those institutions’ impact on their communities. As interns navigate novel professional settings and skills, Green Corps challenges the young adults to ground their experience in the ecological benefits that both campuses yield to their communities. Meandering through the collections, one can easily be entranced by the vibrant colors, calming wildlife sounds and luxurious fragrances of the gardens. Green Corps also strives to develop deep appreciation for plants’ ability to retain stormwater, sequester carbon, filter pollutants, support biodiversity and enhance energy efficiency. To this end, interns conduct their own environmental science investigations, in addition to talking with those in green industries who keep Cleveland’s trees and urban ecosystems healthy.

Growing Green Communities

Green Corps isn’t only beholden to Holden’s ecologists, plant physiologists, arborists and gardeners. The teens also serve alongside other local organizations that are striving to conserve natural resources, to address food insecurity and to beautify under-resourced neighborhoods. In just the past year, interns have learned from partners at the Cleveland Department of Air Quality, the Doan Brook Watershed Partnership, Revolutionary Love Garden, Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, Lettuce Tree Farms and more. They have gained access to the roles and tools of air quality experts, watershed coordinators, farmers, urban planners and environmental scientists. Their introduction to green jobs — and nature-based, climate resilient solutions — is timely. Several Cleveland neighborhoods are currently combatting climate related calamities, including flooding and urban heat island effect. Yet, as the demand grows for skilled technicians and conservation workers, the chasm between educated applicants and available green jobs continues to increase (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, April 2022.) Encountering experienced practitioners gives Green Corps’ interns a glimpse into high demand careers, while demonstrating solutions to today’s pressing environmental concerns. After tromping through Working Woods, measuring trees’ diameter at breast height and extracting worms with Katie S. and Emma D., Clark, an intern in his second session with Green Corp, perused the landscape and smiled. “Experiences like this change how I see the world and the details I notice,” he said. Change, indeed! Having just graduated from the Cleveland School of Arts, with a specialty in creative writing, Clark recently decided to major in one of his burgeoning interests at Cleveland State University this fall — environmental science.

Victoria J., who was mentored by Na Wei, learned about evolutionary ecology while bleaching and dyeing leaves.

Clark H. and Zac B. examined tree roots with the guidance of Vice President of Science & Conservation, David Burke as they learned about mycorrhizal fungi.

Murphy, K. (2021, September 26). Can urban reforestation help lower rising temperatures? PBS News Weekend . broadcast, Cleveland, Ohio; PBS. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2022, April 18). Conservation scientists and foresters : Occupational outlook handbook. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved July 8, 2022, from https://www.bls.gov/ooh/lifephysical-and-social-science/conservation-scientists.htm

MEET THE STAFF

Cherise Kent is the Green Corps Coordinator at Holden Forests & Gardens. She introduces middle and high schoolers to conservation careers. She also enjoys engaging those learners in activities that reveal tree’s ecoservices. Cherise earned a B.A. in Sociology and History from Case Western Reserve before completing her Masters of Middle Childhood Education at John Carroll University. Those experiences prepared her to coordinate educational enrichment for KinderEducation and to manage a seventh grade science classroom in the East Cleveland City Schools district.