Source: By David Sands, Huffington Post Detroit
Although the re-emergence of Detroit’s wilderness has been the subject of a feature film, the story of its young urban trailblazers is much less well known.
This summer, a crew of Detroit youth restored and extended a woodland trail through an overgrown thicket in the city’s Eliza Howell Park, an area that has developed a reputation as a hub for illicit activities, not to mention the site of a gruesome discovery earlier this year.
Their labor was part of a six-week summer high school youth employment program called the Detroit Conservation Leadership Corps (CLC). Along with building and maintaining trails, teenagers in the CLC also restore natural habitats and remove invasive species. This summer eight teams of approximately 10 teens carried out work in parks and neighborhoods around Detroit.
The program is made possible through a partnership between the Greening of Detroit, the Student Conservation Association (SCA) and Johnson Controls, Inc. Similar projects take place in Milwaukee, Wis., Baltimore, Md., as well as at international sites like China, Germany and Mexico. Continue Reading.