Calling all teen environmental leaders!

Wildlands Restoration Volunteers is looking for high school students (ages 14-18) to serve as part of a new leadership program. Youth who participate in this program will have unique opportunities to learn environmental science in the field, build leadership and job skills and lead groups of peers and adults. In addition, participants will meet new people who share their interests, access regional leadership opportunities, and earn service or internship hours if needed.

We are committed to providing safe experiences for youth leaders. 2020-21 programming will be dependent on evolving circumstances, and will potentially involve limiting group sizes, enforcing social distancing, taking direct action around current events, and incorporating some virtual opportunities. If you’re interested, we encourage you to sign up so that we can keep you informed of what we anticipate the program will look like.

As part of this program, youth will have the opportunity to…

• Participate in youth-only ecological restoration projects like trail building, seed collection, planting native species, and more
• Earn Crew Leader certification through the Outdoor Stewardship Institute, learning the skills to lead groups of youth and adults in the completion of ecological restoration projects
• Commit to attending 75% of monthly activities from September through May (with several mandatory attendance dates)

Participants will also gain access to mentoring and career resources, learn valuable job skills, make new friends, earn service hours, spend time exploring Colorado’s beautiful public lands, and give back to our community.

2019 WYLD Program activities included:

• Snowshoeing at CU’s Mountain Research Station near Ward, CO
• Youth Crew Leader Training
• Stewardship and climbing in Eldorado Canyon State Park
• Camping and trail building near Keystone, CO

Applications are closed for the 2020/21 WYLD Program.

If you are interested in participating for the 2020-21 school year, please contact Rachel@wlrv.org.

For more information about WYLD, please contact rachel@wlrv.org.

Youth leaders also ran their own project for Earth Day 2019 on April 20^th! Check out photos from the event here!