CSC’s Workforce and Education Department (W&E) received nine grant awards totaling $292,000 from the Oregon Youth Conservation Corps’ (OYCC) Oregon Youth Employment Initiative (OYEI). The OYEI school-year grants will fund nine youth employment crews, which will employ more than 50 disadvantaged young people, ages 16 – 24, and nine adult crew leaders. Projects will span CSC’s three-county region of Linn, Benton and Lincoln Counties with three crews per county. 
“We are very excited at the prospect of creating jobs for one of our most at-risk populations, our youth,” said W&E Director Clay Martin; “We very much appreciate OYCC and the Youth Employment Initiative for allowing us the opportunity to benefit so many people in need in our communities.” OYEI funds are very specific to job creation and economic stimulus which directly supports the mission of CSC’s W&E Department.
The youth employment crew projects are focused on areas of identified need and will include natural resource and environmental stewardship work in all three counties. Lincoln County’s CSC office is working in cooperation with the Mid-Coast Watershed Council, which also received OYEI funding ($64,000), to support two additional Natural Resource crews on the coast. Crews across the entire region will work on invasive species eradication, riparian area and/or native habitat restoration, and trail maintenance.
CSC attributes a large part of the success of their youth crews to effective community partnerships. “Our community partners assist us in identifying the areas of need,” Martin added. CSC’s community partners include Oregon State University (OSU); Cities of Corvallis, Albany, Lebanon and Toledo; Linn and Benton Counties; the Port of Toledo; U.S. Forest Service; Oregon State Parks; many service agencies, departments of the above-mentioned municipalities; and others. CSC’s two East Linn County crews will operate as part of CSC’s Santiam Wilderness Academy.
CSC also received funding for a youth construction crew which is partnering with the Port and the City of Toledo to build a new park and educational greenhouse for local school students. Youth crew employees throughout the region will learn real world, transferrable work skills, and many will receive industry-recognized training certificates and/or earn high school credits while accomplishing meaningful projects in their own communities.
Youth employment crews create jobs for at-risk young people and provide a training environment where participants can develop job skills and increase their probability of future employment.
For more information, contact Dee Teem, W&E’s Program Advisor, at 541-265-8505 or by email – dteem@communityservices.us.
