| Green Way L.A. At the dedication of the first “Green Street” in Los Angeles, Oros Street in Elysian Valley, North East Trees announced the launch of a new strategic initiative dubbed “Green Way L.A.”. More Info > Creating Community North East Trees has launched this new Initiative as an integration of its Urban Forestry, Youth Environmental Stewards and Community Stewards Programs. More Info > |
Restoring Nature's Services - Youth Environmental Stewardship
North East Trees educates and trains at-risk youth and young adults in environmental disciplines designed to build individual character and to develop a community-based work force to steward restored nature’s services in resource challenged communities. Though North East Trees has been educating and training at-risk-youth since its founding in 1990, a new and ambitious Youth Environmental Steward or “YES” Program was launched in the summer of 2005. It has been implemented as a two track education and training program – one track devoted to high school age at-risk-youth (ARY) and one focused on post high school at-risk young adults – that develops a cadre of youth “stewards as a key cornerstone of the North East Trees Mission: “Restoring Nature’s Services”. North East Trees believes that the youth environmental stewards of today are the community stewards of tomorrow.
The YES program is intended as a work force development within communities that have the highest percentage of ARY in communities in North East Los Angeles, as well as other similar communities elsewhere in Los Angeles County, and is an effort that provides a unique combination of education and training. The youth stewards learn and employ skills in the disciplines of landscape design, arboriculture, norticulture, restoration ecology, hydrology and urban forestry. These includes training in such tasks as tree and shrub pruning, tree planting, mulching, exotic plant removal and water quality monitoring. This is a full time program – the students are expected to put in an eight (8) hour day, five (5) days per week over an eight (8) to 10 week period. The number of recruits per module varies and depends on the number of landscape construction and maintenance projects underway at the time.
The youth stewards who matriculate through the demanding program are awarded a Certificate of Completion. In addition, North East Trees provides job search skill training and assistance in their search for long term employment within the green industry. Recent graduates have signed up for employment with several other local, state and federal agencies.
The YES Program has been integrated with the Urban Forestry and Community Stewardship Programs through North East Trees' Creating Community One Tree at a Time Initiative.
