TerraCorps Recruitment: Our Current Members

May 11, 2020

This year, the Wareham Land Trust is host to three service members through the TerraCorps-AmeriCorps program.

Kyla, our Community Engagement Coordinator/Youth Education Coordinator has worked on planning many community programs for the WLT including organizing Mindfulness walks, Scouts programs, Monthly Movies at the Wareham Free Library, and the future Wareham Earth Day Festival. She has helped make our Facebook page more active even before social distancing and designed a monthly newsletter to engage with our membership digitally. Kyla says she has “really enjoyed bringing peace and connection to the environment to the community, especially those who kept coming back.”

Mike, our Land Stewardship Coordinator, helps to maintain many of the trails in Wareham, and continues to foster our community partnerships with other environmental organizations (Mass Audubon, Wildlands Trust, Buzzards Bay Coalition) and the Town of Wareham. Stewardship is a great way to engage community members in trail maintenance and property management! Mike has helped bridge the gap between land stewardship and outreach, building off his passion for birding by leading bird walks on local properties. When asking Mike about his service year so far, he said “The people are great, the views are stunning, and WLT truly benefits from TC Members, so the job is challenging, enjoyable, and rewarding.”

I’m sure we all know that there is a lot of uncertainty during these unprecedented times. Here is what our Youth Education Coordinator Melyssa had to say about her service year so far:

Before all of the schools closed and after-school programs were put on hold due to COVID-19, I feel like I was genuinely connecting with community organizations and offering a chance for the kids at those organizations to build a meaningful sense of place with their environment and Wareham in general. After my time at the Boys and Girls Club, and also after my time spent at the library, and in the one Science Club program I was able to visit, the facilitators were always enthusiastic and excited about the prospect of having more programs available for the kids that would encourage them to get outside and be involved in experiments and activities with a STEAM focus. Since COVID-19 has changed our service, however, I would say the thing I am proudest of so far is the increased engagement with our Instagram page, and our continued involvement and dedication to creating meaningful, informative, positive social media content in this time of uncertainty and stress. I always knew I had some editing skills, but I did not realize that I had enough skills, or was good enough to actually create professional looking video content for WLT until all of this happened – and probably would not have realized this if our service had not changed due to COVID-19.

We all come with different backgrounds and life experiences. Programs like TerraCorps help service members build on their existing skills while providing professional development opportunities. For anyone looking to get more involved with land-based community organizations, especially those contemplating a career in the environmental or education field, consider applying to the TerraCorps service program for the 2020-2021 service year as the Wareham Land Trust and Mass Audubon Great Neck Wildlife Sanctuary’s Land Stewardship Coordinator/Community Engagement Coordinator. For more information and to apply visit www.terracorps.org.