THE GREEN LEAF

The Green Stop Sign

Our survey results are in, and we're ready to share them with you! Through the first half of 2020, we were working with a very talented team of Brigham-Young students to collect information on why students of color weren't staying in the environmental field after completing their internships. After surveying interns and alumni and compiling the data, we have a full report ready to share with all of you. In it, you'll find the methodology and conclusions drawn from the data, as well as recommendations the students made for increasing student retention. If you'd like to download the report, you can visit the BYU page of our website HERE.

Program Information

This is Greening Youth Foundation's first year working with FUND II and Park Foundation on Intern X. Intern X seeks to address diversity and inclusion through providing this virtual program, where future leaders are created. This inaugural program will consist of twelve students; five working virtually this summer, and seven starting on site Fall. We're very excited to build new relationships with new partners, while giving students from diverse backgrounds opportunities with the National Park Service.

The Directorate fellowship Program(DFP) is a National Program of Fish and Wildlife, that we are excited to have twenty-one fellows in our summer 2020 class. The DFP is a National Program that Greening Youth actively recruited, vetted and manages. We have fellows that are rising juniors, seniors, and are all mostly Environmental Science, Biology, and Natural Resource majors. The twelve week fellowship is addressing the need of a creating future leaders for Fish and Wildlife Service.

Urban Youth Corps Updates

Our Urban Conservation Training Institution has proceeded for the summer! In order to keep our crews safe, we have adopted new policies and procedures emphasizing COVID-19 health and safety protocol for the crews working on projects (such as masks, gloves, and social distancing whenever possible), and have forged new landscape management agreements. We are very blessed to be able to keep the Institute up and running despite COVID complications!

Intern Spotlight - Lauren Kim

   Lauren is a current student at Yale University who has an exciting story to tell! For years, she has been troubled by the lack of resources within the communities of color. Over 40% of residents struggle to afford basic necessities like housing and food and 22% of the city's residents are food insecure, with Hispanic, Latino, and African American communities bearing the greatest burden. In addition to confronting issues of water and air pollution, people of color are threatened by a lack of fair and responsible public policy on environmental issues. This story is something that affects so many but most are so close to the problem that they don’t see it and others don’t care at all.

   Lauren wants to change that. Over the past two years she has collected stories from the Greening Youth Foundation’s website and from around the world. From agroforestry efforts in Taiwan to urban regeneration in China, she has found strength in collecting stories in the hope that her website and projects will serve as a good representation and example of what an inclusive and diverse environmental movement looks like. This past year, with the support of the Greening Youth Foundation and The North Face, she worked to bring Greenish to a community she calls home: New Haven, Connecticut.

Our podcast has returned! Releasing biweekly on our YouTube page, Soundcloud, and Apple Podcasts, we have interviewed alumni and program managers on their experiences in our internships, working in the conservation field, lessons they've learned, and interesting events that have happened. We've been so grateful to be able to bring this series back, and are working to produce even more content with partners, interns, and organizations in the green space to bring new and interesting conversations to you. Check us out and see what all the fuss is about!