Trail Crews: Developing a Service Component to Your Program.

Through wilderness stewardship programs, service projects, or trail crews, college outdoor programs can help land management agencies with their maintenance needs and provide student participants with rewarding service learning opportunities. Trail crews are usually composed of volunteer outdoor enthusiasts who take part in a multitude of technical and nontechnical work projects. In particular, trail crews are heavily utilized to reopen badly damaged trails after harsh winters. This paper uses Penn State University's Outdoor Program as a model to explore the steps in developing a trail crew component to a college outdoor program. These steps include: (1) establishing a solid working relationship with a local trail organization, state or local park, or state forest; (2) locating and securing a sufficient number of high quality trail tools (borrowing tools from agencies, buying the most needed tools over time, soliciting donations from local stores); (3) developing funding (avoiding costs, grant writing, fee-based workshops); (4) developing safety guidelines; and (5) staff training. Included is a general outline of the training requirements for apprentice leaders, assistant trip leaders, trip leaders, and trail crew instructors in Penn State's Outdoor Program. (SV) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ******************************************************************************** Trail Crews: Developing a Service Component to Your Program Brad Boehringer Trail Crew Coordinator Penn State University Outdoor Program Kurt Merrill Director Conservation Work Crew Program Student Conservation Association, Inc. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EyCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. Abstract PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BYPERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY