CLEANING UP STAUNTON RIVER STATE PARK — Ten members of the Youth Conservation Corps, along with two supervisors and an intern, are
spending three weeks at Staunton River State Park helping to clean up
and maintain the park's area along the river banks. This is the fourth
year the park has benefited from the Corps work.

For the fourth year, Staunton River State Park is hosting members of
the Youth Conservation Corps (YCC), a program sponsored by Virginia
State Parks. The YCC crew this year is comprised of ten youth, along
with two supervisors and an intern.
Members come from diverse backgrounds and crew members and supervisors
have traveled from throughout Virginia and neighboring states to spend
three weeks working in the park on conservation projects. The
participants arrived in the park over the week-end and began their work
last Monday.
This year the focus is on shore clean-up and maintenance along the
river. With intense humidity and temperatures soaring into the high
90's on Friday cleaning up the boat ramp was a pretty grueling task.
But Park officials see to it that the members have plenty of time built
into their schedule for swimming, canoeing and other fun activities.
The Youth Corps members stay in the park bunkhouse and prepare most of
their own meals. Upon completion of the three week program, they
receive a generous stipend for their work. Citizenship, work ethic and
leadership development are important components of the program.
According to Park Manager Josh Ellington, the work done by the Youth
Corps is important to the success of the park, as well as for the
future of the state parks system in Virginia.
"It not only instills good values in these young adults, but it helps
to develop the next generation of park rangers to protect Virginia's
natural resources," he said.
Ellington laughs when he says this is the first time he has had male
CCY members. "I just tell them that the girls who were here for the
past three years before got a lot of work done, and I hope they can do
as much," he teases.