WTA crew leaders inspire fun and a love for nature in youth volunteers

Earlier this week, youth trail crew leader Kaci Darsow celebrated their 6th year and 400th work party. The event was a high point in the youth program, since it marked several milestones for participants on it. Not only was it a big day for Kaci, but volunteer Fern Martin acted as an assistant crew leader (ACL) on a youth work party for the first time, shoulder-to-shoulder with longtime volunteer (think 2,000+ work parties) ACL Pete Dewell.

Fern Martin (left) and Pete Dewell helped Kaci Darsow lead a work party at Ring Hill. It was Fern's first youth day work party as an ACL and well past Pete's 2000th. Photo by Andy James.

Fern has been part of WTA's volunteer community since 2019, but it was their first youth work party working as an ACL.

"This has been a goal of mine since my first youth volunteer vacation in 2019, so I am really excited to empower others to take care of our public lands!"

Fern and Pete worked naturally together, bringing the fun to the project, which was with Washington Prep at Ring Hill Forest. Youth trail program coordinator Andy James was on site supporting the project, and he noticed that the two seemed to be working together effortlessly:

"Huge shout out to both Fern and Pete for wrangling teens all day with absolute ease," Andy said. "Yesterday was proof that no matter how old or how young, everyone can make a difference."

Pete and Fern give the tool talk at the beginning of the day. This short talk shows volunteers how to use each tool during the course of the day. Photo by Andy James.

Working with youth takes a certain set of skills, and our youth program has been refining those skills for years. The staff, including Andy, Kaci and WTA's youth trail program manager will allen, have cultivated a strong, close-knit community of youth volunteers, many of whom return year after year.

The team has established shared-identity spaces for youth both on day work parties and on our high-demand youth volunteer vacations, and they consistently provide a fun atmosphere where teens learn trail work skills and have a blast doing it. Some of our former youth volunteers have found staff roles at WTA, or gone on to pursue other work in the outdoors world.

Creating a space where youth feel welcome, safe, and excited to return is a core part of WTA's original mission. At the end of the day, Pete Dewell — who knew Greg Ball (the founder of WTA's trail program) personally — shared with Andy, Fern and Kaci that having a youth program was important to Greg Ball and that Pete had helped get WTAs first iteration of the youth program started.

A key part of engaging trail work is taking time for breaks. Here two volunteers rest from flossing (or clearing debris from between the slats of) a bridge. Photo by Andy James.

Getting youth outside and engaged in the outdoors is key to ensuring a future for Washington's trails, but it's also important to help them learn how much they're capable of accomplishing. And Kaci has dialed in that ability over their years at WTA.

"I'm realizing more and more my role and talent is about matching people, projects, personalities, interests and energies to set volunteers up for success, and then just getting out of the way as much as possible. The real magic comes from the participants and the ACLs, from the places and the projects. I help create opportunities, I build the container, but it's the community that fills it."