A group of young Boston residents from PowerCorpsBOS, a partnership between the Mayor’s Workforce Development Office and the Environment, Energy and Open Spaces Cabinet, will participate in the Boston Parks and Recreation Authority’s Urban Wild Program and educate at Boston’s Buena Vista Urban Wild. We planted trees for Roxbury on October 25th.
PowerCorpsBOS is a green jobs program that provides training, career readiness support, and employer connections to youth from communities historically excluded from the green jobs industry. An “earn and learn” program, her PowerCorpsBOS pays members to attend practical training that prepares them for living wage careers.
Over the course of a six-month training program, PowerCorpsBOS teaches its personnel a range of transferable soft and technical forestry skills that can be used in green industries and other areas. His PowerCorps BOS, modeled after the Philadelphia PowerCorps PHL program, aims to foster workforce development for youth opportunities in growth industries and to support environmental stewardship and the City of Boston’s climate policy.
Buena Vista Urban Wild offers a peaceful respite from nature in a dense urban setting. Dominated by 50-foot-high rocky cliffs, the majority of the outcrop is covered by a mixed deciduous forest of oak, red maple, and black cherry. A small section near the top leads to a cool, grassy meadow.
Arborway Tree Care professional arborists taught PowerCorps students the basics of successful planting and post-planting care in the classroom and in the field. A PowerCorps student he planted three hawthorn trees and learned how to solve challenges such as handling large rocks and debris when digging holes. It was the first experience for the students to plant a large tree about 10-14 feet tall.
PowerCorps and the Urban Wild program have put in hours of work to make much-needed improvements to the Buena Vista Urban Wild. This includes the ongoing restoration of the forest understory ecosystem at the ‘top’ of Buena Vista, as well as basic maintenance work such as trash cleanup. The tree planting on October 25th was the last site improvement work for the 2022 season.
For more information, Write to PowerCorpsBOS PowerCorpsBOS@boston.gov or check out their webpage owd.boston.gov/powercorpsbosFor more information on Urban Wilde in Boston, visit www.urbanwild.com. boston.gov/urban-wilds.
PowerCorpsBOS Member Nicholas Cruz, Damoni Swain, Christopher Edwards, Dandle Cloud, Rasheed Avinger, Crew Chief Richard Sheriff, and Jerain Flores, in partnership with the Boston Parks and Recreation Department’s Urban Wild Program, Educational tree planting at Buena Vista Urban Wild in Roxbury on October 25th.
The PowerCorpsBOS team will plant one of three new hawthorn trees at Buena Vista Urban Wild in Roxbury on October 25th.
Jerain Flores Help PowerCorpsBOS plant 3 hawthorn trees and Educational reforestation held in partnership with Boston Parks and Recreation Department’s Urban Wilds Program Buena Vista Urban Wild, Roxbury, October 25th.
Photo: Shannon Murphy
