I had the great honor of working one summer at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, doing conservation work and helping Boy Scouts get the experience I had in my youth. During those weeks of hacking trails out of mountainsides and moving stumps and boulders off the tread, I reflected that eight decades ago, young men like me were doing this kind of work not just for the heck of it, but because the country was in economic crisis.
Through the Civilian Conservation Corps, the federal government under Franklin D. Roosevelt was trying to offer Americans a way out of the cycle of poverty and despair and into community and useful service during the depths of the Great Depression. The legacy of the CCC is still all around us, in our national parks and forests and the walls and cabins built by those young men. It also lives on in the various conservation-oriented service programs run by local and state governments and civic organizations.
Read Full Article »