Urban, Latina, and young, Diana Lopez represents the increasing number of SCA members drawn from groups who have not traditionally been involved in conservation.
Houston resident Diana, like many other SCA members from the southwest, is bilingual. She spoke to us recently in Spanish and English, and video clips of the interviews are posted on the Houston [1] and En Espanol [2] pages of our website. Among other motivations for joining SCA, she said that SCA offers “a good opportunity to help out my community,” a statement that emerged as a theme in other conversations with fellow team members. Diana concluded the video interviews with a plea to Save the Environment – Ayude Nuestra Naturaleza.
Others from the Houston group shared their thoughts about conservation, SCA, and why the two go together.
Two-year Houston crew leader veteran Felix Perez said, “I feel that there are many reasons why an organization such as SCA is important and vital to the community... because, especially in a large metropolitan area such as Houston, there are many people who don’t see anything all day other than concrete and a few trees scattered here and there.” He continued, “It is absolutely essential that our youth experience what great joys there are to be experienced in [the outdoors].”
And crew member Miguel Farrera explained, “For many of us the reason we work in our environment is to make sure other generations can enjoy it too, not just us. We want to preserve everything how it is and help slow down or stop the process of destroying it.” He added, “I acquired a lot of skills, like a hard work ethic and social skills. The friends I met on my national crew will probably be life long. I still talk to a lot of them.” (Miguel was on a Delaware Water Gap National Crew this past summer with students drawn from across the country.)
SCA now has community programs in major metropolitan areas including Dallas, Houston, Milwaukee, Newark, Oakland, Pittsburgh, Seattle, and Washington DC, among others, and coming next summer to Detroit. These urban programs represented 22% of SCA members for the past program year. That’s up from 12% in the preceding year and growing. For photos and more information about these individual programs, please visit the Community Programs [3] section of our website.