On a muggy late July morning, Jacob Sanchez stood in front of a dense stand of invasive buckthorn in McGovern Park and pulled down a towering branch of the shrub.
Crew members from Cream City Conservation Corps looked on, calling out ways to identify the invader.
Glossy leaves with teeth-like serrations. Orange sapwood just underneath the bark.
Invasive buckthorn has taken over the trails that meander through the wooded stand in McGovern Park. Not only has it cut off access to trails, but it outcompetes native understory plants by releasing toxins into the soil and shading them out.
The conservation corps members were there to help remove it.
Sanchez, trails coordinator with Milwaukee County Parks, said the goal was to give space for native plants to thrive. But really, the day was about so much more.
Cream City Conservation Corps provides a space for young adults from marginalized and underrepresented communities to learn about careers in the environment and connect with the urban landscape around them.
Though people of color are most affected by environmental pollution and rising temperatures, they remain underrepresented in the leadership of environmental organizations. Cream City Conservation is trying to change that.
Milwaukee youth ages 15 to 19 can apply to work during a session. There are three sessions throughout the year in spring, summer and fall, and each one has between 10 to 30 crew members. There are also six crew leaders that help manage the teams.
During each session, crew members rotate working at different agencies throughout the county, such as Milwaukee County Parks, Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Forest Service and the Urban Ecology Center.
If the crew members in this summer's session needed an example that their hard work would pay off, Sanchez was it.
Sanchez fell in love with the outdoors while working for the Bureau of Land Management in Colorado. In 2021, he came back home to Milwaukee in search of similar work opportunities. Working as a crew leader with Cream City Conservation Corps helped him get his foot in the door and eventually paved the way for his career with the Parks Department.
And his story is not unique. In the three years since he was crew leader, he has seen over 80 young people come through the program, many of whom get hired in the Parks department where he works. “So there's a real and perceived pipeline,” he said.
For 20-year-old Karina Soto, who has worked with the corps for four years and worked her way up to crew leader this year, working with the corps is a “comfortable and welcoming space” to get on-the-job training.
Even if they do not end up pursuing a career in the field, Sanchez thinks taking pride in their work is an important part of the experience for young people.
“We're stewarding these places where people can escape their day-to-day, and really just enjoy being outside. I think that exposure for the students is really critical,” he said.
'You can't be what you don't know exists'
August Ball created Cream City Conservation, the first black-owned certified B corporation in Wisconsin, in 2016. B corporations, or B corps, are for-profit companies that meet the highest standards of social and environmental performance, public transparency and accountability.
Ball, a former Milwaukee County Parks staff member, saw a lack of diversity in environmental careers and would often be the only woman of color when she went to environment and natural resources meetings. To help fix this, Ball started doing outdoor workshops for agencies that wanted to be more inclusive but didn’t know where to start.
And that’s how Cream City Conservation was born.
The profit that Ball makes from workshops and consulting goes directly into funding the youth program.
Corps members leave with not only a land ethic, Ball said, but also empathy, civic responsibility and the ability to think outside of themselves.
In his position with the Parks department, Sanchez oversees more than 40 miles of hiking trails and 135 miles of Oak Leaf Trail. To maintain it all, they need outside help like the Cream City Conservation Corps crew to “fill in the gaps where we just don't have the manpower resources yet,” Sanchez said.
For the last three years, 17-year-old Quentin Banigan has been one of those crew members maintaining Milwaukee’s trails.
Banigan has spent the past summer working four days a week removing buckthorn and other invasive species like Canadian thistle, planting rain gardens and installing bioswales.
Banigan is planning to go to college next year to study physics. Although he won’t be pursuing a career in conservation, being outside, enjoying good views and visiting more parks than he can remember the names of has been an invaluable experience.
According to Ball, many corp members go on to have successful careers at other environmental and conservation agencies and organizations. Corps members also find careers where they can use their knowledge about sustainability — like teaching, the culinary industry and fashion design.
The youth that go through the program would be successful regardless, Ball said, but the program lets young adults know that careers like this are out there.
"You can't be what you don't know exists," Ball said.
More:A new Milwaukee program gives away free trees, improves health, builds community. Here's how.
Progress is visible in many ways
Crew members return to the program for a variety of reasons.
“I really liked how trails specifically connect people in community and nature. But, you know, students might really latch on to plant identification,” Sanchez said
Others may find the team building aspect of the experience to be most valuable, he added.
So many teens are bound to their phone and social media, Soto said, that the program is a good chance to learn what is going on out in the community.
For Soto, the program has helped her find her voice and hone her leadership skills while taking her down a path she never knew she’d take. In the fall, she will start her freshman year of college and hopes to one day work for an environmental nonprofit organization, a goal that she credits to her work as a corps member.
“It takes a lot of work, but you see a lot of progress when you’re done,” Soto said.
More:A new urban forest is growing in Sherman Park. Here's why that's big for the neighborhood
Caitlin Looby is a Report for America corps member who writes about the environment and the Great Lakes. Reach her at clooby@gannett.com or follow her on X@caitlooby.
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