As part of our Education and Outreach, TNUF supports programs thru Pacific Rivers and the Phoenix School (alternative high school) to expose students to the aquatic world and help train the next generation of resource stewards. Students are trained in snorkeling streams, identifying and counting fish, and recognition of good fish habitat characteristics. The data they help collect is useful in describing the value of fish protection and habitat restoration, especially in Canton and Steamboat creeks.
The Phoenix School
Each year participants from eight communities of Douglas County are recruited to the Phoenix School of Roseburg. Over 80 youth every school year and around 30 youth during the summer join the action. The goal has always been quality projects which improve the lives of our community’s youth via our focus on positive youth development, work readiness, and educational-related goals. With The North Umpqua Foundation donation the Phoenix school has been able to purchase a passenger van for transporting youth corps crews.
These crews perform numerous valuable projects on public lands in our community. A large volume of these project do occur in the North Umpqua corridor on BLM, USFS, and private lands. Hand-tool crews directly improve campgrounds, re-groom trails, restore riparian zones, and help with management of noxious weeds. The Phoenix School natural resources technical crews help agency project leads manage timber stands and streams through the collection of data used for the agencies’ planning and monitoring processes. This initiative has also been a leading factor to foster collaboration among partners for the newly formed Natural Resources Program at Umpqua Community College.
For example, a key project this summer will be stand exams in the Calf-Copeland drainage as coordinated by efforts of the Umpqua Forestry Coalition.
Since 2012, Phoenix crews have been directly involved in the Canton Creek watershed with snorkel counts of juvenile salmonids under the assistance of Pacific Rivers Council, Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians, and the Roseburg District BLM. This project has personally been a favorite to see how each year youth submerge themselves in the watershed and experience a spark to ignite a passion for land management related careers.
The valuable data the youth collect also rewards the fisheries as it will factor greatly into restoration planning for upcoming projects in Upper Pass Creek and Pass Creek watersheds. These summer youth corps programs alone successfully garner over $100,000 annually to support youth wages and related expenses from various agency agreements and national grant funds.
