Landmark Volunteers 10th anniversary summer

Print Story | Email Story
At Schenob Brook in Sheffield, the Landmark volunteers wear chest waders to battle overgrown grasses. Some of the kids wind up swimming and fill the waders with water, said Jessica Murray, preserve steward for the Nature Conservancy in Sheffield. She always takes a before-and-after picture of the phragmites battle. The kids always love it, she said. Ann Barrett, executive director of Landmark Volunteers, explained that in Landmark programs, groups of about a dozen high school students, between 10th and 12th grade, volunteer for a two-week stay. Landmark runs programs throughout the summer. This is its 10th anniversary. What began with a small program outside Boston, founded by President John Hoyte Stookey, now involves 615 students from 36 states and six foreign countries, in programs across 18 states. “Nine of original 10 programs are still with us,” Barrett said; once an institution starts a Landmark program, it nearly always keeps the program running. Landmark’s Sheffield headquarters is the nerve center for 55 programs this year, Barrett said, eight in Berkshire County: Appalachian Mountain Club II, Mount Greylock, in Lanesborough; Berkshire South Community Center in Great Barrington; the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood, Lenox; Gould Farm in Monterey; Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and School in Becket; Schenob Brook Wetlands in Sheffield, and its sister project at the Sharon Audubon Center, in Connecticut; Ventfort Hall, in Lenox. Schenob Brook Wetlands have spent five or six years with Landmark. Each summer, new volunteers abate critical threats to the wetlands, Murray said: mostly invasive species and dumping. The volunteers have a chance to restore habitats and ask questions. They remove phragmites australis, the common reed, from wetlands, and Japanese barberry from forests. These foreign plants drive out some native species and change the balance of soil nutrients, threatening others. The volunteers take them on with crowbars and shovels, Murray said. “They’re really dedicated.” She said the kids are super intellectual, outgoing, and very interested in the Nature Conservancy’s work. Some travel significant distances to volunteer. The farthest this year came from England, by way of Seattle. They love swimming in the Green River, she said, and they have had great crew leaders. They work seven to eight hours a day, depending on weather. They always come at the beginning of July, just in time for a season of late afternoon storms. They spend about 12 days in Sheffield, and work one for the Undermountain School, where they stay. They have one day off. They go home weathered, with bug bites, scratches, poison ivy rashes, and stories. Murray said the kids tend to get attached to their tools and name their shovels. They are very creative, even if the work is not. “It’s an easy way to educate them about landscape ecology,” she said. The Nature Conservancy office in Sheffield serves three states. The volunteers often do not think of natural boundaries as separate from community and political boundaries. Murray and the volunteers talk about conservancy goals. “It’s great to say, we have all these species,” she said; “they say, ‘so?’ ” Then she talks about how to preserve and protect those species. “You have to be able to work though some challenges teens present,” Murray said. She has a teenage sister, which gives her an advantage. “You have to lead by example,” she said. She has to motivate the group, give them the reasoning behind the work they do, and give them some work that shows clear results. It is important, she said, for the volunteers to see what they have done at the end of the day. Since they return to sites other Landmark volunteers have cleared in previous years, it is easy for them to wonder, “Am I doing that much?” “Be positive,” she said. She would pick the people who needed extra encouragement, the ones who needed knowledge, the ones who needed rest. “You have to be adaptive and get a feel for how the day goes.” At the end of two weeks, when she got a big thank-you card, or afterward, when she gets postcards from them for the rest of the year, Murray thinks, “that was totally worth it.” It amazes her that the Landmark headquarters is right in Sheffield, she said. She grew up in Sheffield and volunteered all the time. Landmark gives teens an experience in volunteer work that gets them ready for college and away from their parents, she said. They make friends. She is impressed with the number of programs Landmark offers, and the caliber of the people they can get as team leaders for the volunteers. Leigh Greenwood, a recent graduate of Williams College, returned from banding Hawks in Puerto Rico and led the Schenob Brook team this summer. Greenwood had interned with the Nature Conservancy for several years, Murray said. She would get the kids asking hard questions — “they ask to make sure you know.” Greenwood went on to lead the Sharon Audubon crew. Last year’s Schenob Brook team leader went on to lead a crew at Appleton Farms in Ipswich. And one volunteer who had volunteered at Ventfort Hall came back to Landmark this year for the Schenob Brook Program, she said. It also amazes her how many projects the volunteers can get done in their two weeks. “We expect the Landscape volunteers to take care of certain projects now,” Murray said. This year, the Nature Conservancy has just started removing garlic mustard, too. They have used the landmark kids as a baseline assessment of the time and labor involved before they put together work days and cleanup crews. The volunteers stay at Undermountain School, and shop and cook for themselves. Murray said her birthday always falls at the end of the first week, and they always try to make her dinner and a cake. It always takes two hours longer than they expect, she said. This trip is often the first time they have ever had to buy food and plan meals ahead of time, and clean up afterward. They always make a huge joke of having to cook, she said. “To do that three meals a day, and make sure they have lunch, it’s different,” she said. They grow up some. At Ventfort Hall, volunteers came in mid-July and climbed scaffoldings, plastering lathe ceilings. The work was “dirty and involved,” said Lani Sternerup, education and program director for the museum. Sternerup trains guides and puts together exhibits. She said the Landmark program was “wonderfully worthwhile.” They did some landscaping this year and planted rhododendrons, and they helped to restore Mr. Morgan’s office or study. The room had been gutted, and the Ventfort Hall association hopes to use it as reception area and gift shop. They also did some painting on the third floor. Tjasa Sprague, treasurer of the board of directors of the Ventfort Hall Association, said this was the museum’s fourth year with Landmark. Ventfort Hall got involved with Landmark because Sprague knows Barrett. When the Ventfort Hall association first began work on Ventfort Hall, they had such problems, Sprague said. “It was like Sleeping Beauty’s castle: wooded to the hilt.” Landmark volunteers helped to clear the walled garden and the lawn, and removed trees and shrubs. Last year and this year, they could work on the interior of the building as well. Last year, the volunteers began work on the traditional lathe and plaster ceiling, nailing up old lathes. This year, they plastered. It is hard work, energetic, and fun, and Sprague thinks they enjoyed it. Local artisans showed them how to make plaster moulding designs, she said. The volunteers took small ones home. “It’s a camp situation,” she said, about 12 volunteers together, about half and half girls and boys. They came from Maine, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Ohio, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and as close as Sheffield this year. They work work 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., but ease off if it gets hot: last year, when they were taking down trees, Sprague would sometimes send them off to swim. They stayed in Sprague’s house, at Undermountain Farm, she said. She added that Tanglewood’s Landmark volunteers down the street stayed in the Berkshire Country Day School Gym, and may move to Shakespeare & Company grounds next year. At the Berkshire South Community Center, 12 volunteers cleared trails on Three Mile Hill. Executive Director Nick Broad said they worked in collaboration with Berkshire United Way, Department of Natural Resources, Berkshire natural Resources Council: the Landmark kids cut in one direction, and Americorps volunteers cut from the other. They met in the middle. Peter and Eric Jensen of Open Space Management in Great Barrington trained the volunteers. “It’s not a simple matter of going in and whacking around,” Broad said. The volunteers cleared a trail eight to 10 feet high and eight feet wide. They followed laid out pathway, sawing and cutting with hand tools, in company with bugs. Broad’s volunteers came from all over the Eastern seaboard, from North Carolina northward. While in the Berkshires, they went to the Triplex in Great Barrington, the Norman Rockwell Museum, and Tanglewood, played mini-golf, and slept at Monument Mountain High School. Berkshire South is in early stages of its construction: foundation, water, sewer and gas lines, and framing on its way in. The new three-mile Landmark Trail connects downtown Great Barrington, along Route 7 and along the ridge, to Fontaine Pond and a network of state trails.
Share
If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

McCann Recognizes Superintendent Award Recipient

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff

Landon LeClair and Superintendent James Brosnan with Landon's parents Eric and Susan LeClair, who is a teacher at McCann. 
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Superintendent's Award has been presented to Landon LeClair, a senior in McCann Technical School's advanced manufacturing course. 
 
The presentation was made last Thursday by Superintendent Jame Brosnan after Principal Justin Kratz read from teachers' letters extolling LeClair's school work, leadership and dedication. 
 
"He's become somewhat legendary at the Fall State Leadership Conference for trying to be a leader at his dinner table, getting an entire plate of cookies for him and all his friends," read Kratz to chuckles from the School Committee. "Landon was always a dedicated student and a quiet leader who cared about mastering the content."
 
LeClair was also recognized for his participation on the school's golf team and for mentoring younger teammates. 
 
"Landon jumped in tutoring the student so thoroughly that the freshman was able to demonstrate proficiency on an assessment despite the missed class time for golf matches," read Kratz.
 
The principal noted that the school also received feedback from LeClair's co-op employer, who rated him with all fours.
 
"This week, we sent Landon to our other machine shop to help load and run parts in the CNC mill," his employer wrote to the school. LeClair was so competent the supervisor advised the central shop might not get him back. 
 
View Full Story

More North Adams Stories

Schools
image description

McCann Recognizes Superintendent Award Recipient

Schools
Community News
image description

Companion Corner: Weber at No Paws Left Behind

Community News
Business
image description

Friday Front Porch Feature: A Charming House Like New

Business
Business
image description

North Adams Jewelry Store Has New Owner

Business
Community News
image description

North Adams Water Safe to Drink

Community News
Community News
image description

North Adams Lifts Boil Water Order for Most of City

Community News
Latest Stories
Previous Next

What's Trending?