Governor Rell: Youth Workers of CT Conservation Corps

Improving State Parks and Beaches

Pilot Program Funded by Federal Stimulus Dollars

                Governor M. Jodi Rell today announced that more than two dozen young men and women are helping spruce up state parks and beaches as part of the Governor’s Connecticut Conservation Corps pilot program, which is funded with federal stimulus dollars.

The Governor said the state received $11 million in stimulus funds for summer youth employment and is using part of it to support the program that hires workers 17 to 24 years of age. The Governor developed the program based the Civilian Conservation Corps initiated by President Franklin Roosevelt to help lift the nation out of the Great Depressions.

“Good ideas never grow old,” Governor Rell told a gathering of Connecticut Conservation Corps participants today at Valley Falls Park in Vernon. “The original CCC helped transform our national and state park system, including parks in Connecticut, and was a valuable experience for the young men who participated. That is why I want to bring the concept back this year in the form of the Connecticut Conservation Corps.”

The program is a partnership between the state Departments of Environmental Protection and Labor and Workforce Investment Boards from around the state. The program runs 6 to 8 depending upon the location of the workers, who are paid $8 an hour. More than two dozen young adults are participating and hail from Hartford, New Haven and the Windham County towns of Willimantic and Danielson.

 The crews do a variety of work including repair and clear trails, build picnic tables, boardwalks, lifeguard stations, cut back overgrown areas and install signage. They work with at least one crew members at the following locations:

·        Goodwin State Forest, Hampton

·        Shenipsit State Forest, Ellington

·        Bigelow Hollow State Park, Union

·        Hammonasset State Park, Madison

The Governor pointed out the work done by these crews does not replace work tasks by DEP employees but rather complements them, allowing state workers to focus on other immediate needs.

“What these young people have been able to accomplish this summer goes far beyond improvements made to our parks and beaches,” the Governor said. “They are learning skills for a lifetime – teamwork, communication, decision-making and leadership. It is my hope we will be able to continue this program in the future on a larger scale.”

History of the CCC in Connecticut

            There were 22 CC camps in Connecticut, with about 200 to 250 young men living at each of them, throughout the 1930s and early 1940s.  Participants went to work in what were then largely undeveloped state parks. 

They built trails, roads, fire towers and picnic shelters and planted trees and in many parks.  Some of the specific projects were building dams that created swimming areas at Chatfield Hollow State Park, Killingworth and Pachaug State Forest, Voluntown; clearing the recreation area for Squantz Pond, New Fairfield; improvements to Hammonasset Beach State Park, Madison; and the construction of the forest rangers’ homes at Shenipsit, Chatfield Hollow, Pachaug and Tunxis state parks.

CCC Across the Nation

The CCC was established by President Roosevelt shortly after he took office.  Nicknamed Roosevelt’s “Tree Army,” the CCC created work at a time when jobs where scarce and to helped complete environmental conservation projects in an era when soil erosion and deforestation had ravaged much of the nation’s landscape. 

Almost 3.5 million young men were enrolled in the CCC from 1933 until 1942, when it was disbanded as manpower needs for World War II grew.

Young men ages 17 to 21, as well as veterans of the Spanish American War and World War I, were eligible to serve.  They signed up for six-month stints and lived in military style camps run by military officers.  They were paid $1 a day and required to send $25 of their pay back home to their families every month.

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