BY AIMEE RUDIN

Statesman Journal

Fawn Brown could have gotten a summer job flipping burgers at a fast food restaurant.

He could have used his free time to watch movies or hang out at the mall with friends in his hometown of Ashland.

But, instead, Brown, 19, got a job with the Northwest Youth Corps, where he spends his days as part of a 12-person crew. They dig ditches, move gravel, and learn how to live and work with a group in nature. ''The corps helps me develop leadership skills that most jobs don't usually have,'' Brown said. ''The program is really good for a first job. It softens the transition between school, college and work.'

Brown and the rest of crew recently spent several days of their five-week session at Silver Falls State Park restoring a hiking trail that had been overrun by brambles and branches.

The 10 crew members and two crew leaders spread themselves out along the narrow trail. Each person has a specific Job but needs to work as part of the team to accomplish a task.

Brown joined woods boss Angie Gadino to fill five-gallon buckets with gravel for depositing along the trail.

One hundred feet up the trail from Gadino and Brown, Anne Hickman, 17, dug a culvert with several other crew members.

Hickman, who is from Rochester, N.Y., said that even though she went to bed with sore muscles, got up with sore muscles, and worked all day with sore muscles, the work was fun and better than most summer jobs.

''We have contests, like how many buckets of gravel you can put in a wheel barrow and how much water you can chug - it makes things go a lot faster,' she said.

The youth corps isn't just about performing manual labor and goofing around with crew members, however.

'A lot of the time, the work overshadows everything else,' William Scrafford, a program manager for the youth corps said. 'The fact is that it's an education program. A large part of the program is community development.'

Crew members spend their evenings learning to speak in front of groups, how to apply for jobs and how to write resumes.

Scrafford said the goal of the corps is to strengthen the work ethic, leadership abilities, team work and self-reliance of everyone who enters into the program.

The Northwest Youth Corps is open to youths from across the nation. The corps offers several different programs with -crew members ranging in age from 11 to 19.

Admittance into the corps is by application, and young adults accepted into the corps earn $6.90 per hour and/or high school credit.

Unlike many other youth outdoor programs, those who join the youth corps are not under court order to do it.

'We get participants with a variety of backgrounds involved in the youth corps,' Scrafford said. 'The kids that we get typically seek a position here.'

Aimee Rudin can be reached at arudin@StatesmanJoumal.com

August 5, 2003 - Courtesy of the Statesman Journal-Salem, Oregon

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