YCC: A helping hand
Youth Conservation Corps working on Grants projects

Lloyd Padilla, Joshua Padilla and Kylisha Plain Eagle paint curbs along Santa Fe Avenue in Grants on Thursday, July 24 as part of a Youth Conservation Corps project. The curb painting is just one of several projects that the group has helped out with. [photo by Brian Leddy / Independent]

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Planting trees along Santa Fe Avenue, painting and cleaning up Riverside Park, digging and placing flower beds at Grants Senior Center — these were some of the projects by the Youth Conservation Corps through the Future Foundations Family Center.

“This is a great program, I really like it,” Josh Gallegos, 19, a sophomore at University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, and a 2007 graduate from Grants High School said. “It’s difficult finding a summer job for youth in Grants.”

“This program also teaches you things like how to develop a résumé and how to create a good first impression; that’s something they don’t teach you in school, as far as I know,” he said.

Gallegos said he is studying business at UNM and intends to go to graduate school and someday own his own business, even if he does not yet know what kind of business.

“I like the idea of something being mine and that I can pass on to other generations of my family,” he said.

During the summer work program for youth and young adults, ages 14-24, the eight-person crew worked outside five mornings each week and then spent the afternoons working with summer camp youth at the center. The 10-week program ends Friday.

There were no Corps members this summer in their 20s; they ranged in age from 14-19, Gallegos, who was a crew leader, said.

Dale Good, program manager at the center and the supervisor for the Youth Conservation Corps program, said each afternoon the Corps members worked closely with the kids attending the center’s summer program.

Each day, something different was offered to the youth.
On Mondays, “Smart Art” included such art projects as making arrowheads, painting and creating colorful sand bowls with sands of different colors.

On Tuesdays, it was “Have a Ball” day, with fundamentals of basketball being taught and kids playing on teams.

Wednesdays were “Community Service Day,” with Corps members doing community service at the center and around town. They rearranged and improved the railroad ties along the side of the center and shoveled gravel prior to cement being placed into certain areas and put bricks in place.

On Thursdays, cooking was on the menu. Corps members taught center youth how to grill chicken, make spaghetti and cooked tacos and cheesecake.

Fridays were the “Kick It” days, where kids went on hikes to La Ventana and Mount Taylor, went swimming at the Milan pool and bowling.

“We want kids to know they can do things like bowling instead of sitting inside and watching TV,” Gallegos said.

Information: (505) 285-3542.

To contact reporter Jim Tiffin call (505) 285-4560 or e-mail: jtiffin.independent@yahoo.com