Home » Groups » 2013 Army Corps Visitor Use Survey Leader Team #2: Tennessee » Hello Sophie

Hello Sophie

Submitted by slouis.corps on Sun, 03/24/2013 - 23:25

California native, currently adopted by the South.

I began volunteering at a backpacking camp in the high Sierra Nevada Mountains at 16. The Carson-Iceberg Wilderness and Camp Jack Hazard became my home and every summer I found respite from scorching California central valley temperatures. The wilderness smoothed over my cracks and rough edges and the stars sang me to sleep every night. I watched campers grow to love the back country, returning year after year, growing wiser and more aware of their own environmental responsibility.

College school years were spent studying at Modesto Junior College and Humboldt State University. Cultural Anthropology, I specialized in ancient cultures of Central America. Summer 2008, I attended the Universidad Autonoma Benito Juarez de Oaxaca in central southern Mexico as an exchange student. In 2009, I graduated from Humboldt State University with a BA in Cultural Anthropology, minor in Spanish.

In 2010, I moved to San Jose, California to join AmeriCorps and work for a non-profit called Our City Forest where I worked on a team that focused on managing and enhancing the health of the urban forest.

Early 2012, I began researching opportunities to get my hands dirty with the Student Conservation Association and found myself working in beautiful northern Georgia on lakeshores leading a team conducting visitor use surveys. This year, I have returned to lead the leader crew in Tennessee and am excited about the opportunity to support the development of future SCA leaders.

Hello Sophie
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The Leader Team Program is a new SCA program model that is primarily focused on fulfilling SCA’s mission to create the next generation of conservation leaders.   Successful completion of this program qualifies a member to serve as an SCA leader themselves, ideally immediately following the Leader Team Program. 

Leader Team Members will first work as part of the leader team for three months in the spring in one location, then (if they graduate) either: take on the Project Leader position for a larger, “standard” team of Corps members for the three-month summer team in that location, or take on a leader position for another SCA program. 

 The project for this leader team is the Army Corps of Engineers Visitor Use Survey Program (ACE VUS).  This is a two-year-old SCA partnership that provides members a valuable opportunity to help the Army Corps of Engineers monitor the use of its beautiful recreational sites across the country.  Teams will: collect, organize and download interview data; use a schedule of randomly selected sample sites for specific dates; collaborate with SCA leader and ACE staff; maintain proper care of supplies and equipment; and much more.   The team will also design and carry numerous conservation projects and community service projects, both at the sites they are monitoring and elsewhere in the local community.  This gives the members an opportunity to interact with project staff, develop their leadership skills, and leave a lasting impact in their community.