Youth changed by month of service

SEELEY LAKE- Three Seeley Lake students returned this week from a 27-day trip filled with work and growth, as they did volunteer work in the Superior and Plains Ranger Districts with the Montana Conservation Corps high school youth program.

Erik Lorentz, 15, Cody Stevenson, 15, and Madison Hinchey, 17, were recruited by MCC youth program leader Nick Ehlers at Seeley-Swan High School. Ehlers attended the Career Fair to reach out to youth in Seeley Lake to join MCC programs.

"Hopefully we give them even more experience outside their own cities to kind of see a wider Montana and speak with professionals and hopefully have a bit of a clearer vision or next steps forward," Ehlers said.

The experience provides learning opportunities for both "hard skills" like sharpening tools, wilderness safety and physical labor experience and "soft skills" like communication, teamwork and leadership.

The youth worked on restoring various campsites by cleaning them or restoring certain areas like outhouses, putting up signs and clearing and cutting trails.

Hinchey said the most satisfying job they did was rebuilding a rock staircase at Up Up Lookout.

"We started off with something that wasn't in good condition and when we were done we had put in new rocks and stabilized it and it was really good to know it was better than it was when we walked up to it," she said.

Lorentz said he learned important work skills and found out that others saw him in a different light than he saw himself.

"The crew leaders said I was looked up to and respected in a way. I didn't know that about myself. I didn't try to be that much of a leader," he said. "I also learned that I can sleep anywhere."

Stevenson learned the importance of the work that trail crews do to help people access public lands and nature.

"When you do it you understand how everything is made and you respect the trails and the campsite more," he said.

One of the crew's leaders, Luke Fisher, said watching kids grow and change over a month is one of his favorite parts of his job. He said Hinchey also stood out as a leader and was chosen by the other kids in the group to be "leader for a day."

"On our last day out in the field we gave her all these responsibilities," Fisher said. "She just handled it. It was amazing to watch and she was so organized and had a great big picture mentality of what needed to be done."

Hinchey said she thinks the job came naturally because she's used to helping her younger siblings and telling them what needs to be done.

"Some part of me took that initiative," she said. "I didn't really realize I was [acting as a leader] until someone mentioned to me that I was doing it."

The trip wasn't without challenges, homesickness, heat and changes in plans among them.

When the group was supposed to go backpacking to camp near a mountain lake near the Idaho border, the trip was cancelled because of a nearby fire.

"The fire bummed me out because we didn't actually get to go backpacking. I haven't actually been so I was really excited for it," Lorentz said. "We actually had to go down to the campsite and restore outhouses instead, so that was kind of a bummer."

Fisher said watching the group deal in a positive manner with heat and hard work was uplifting. To deal with the heat, they played Frisbee after the sun went down.

"A lot of the jobs are physically demanding, things like that are pretty monotonous and you get tired and hot," Fisher said. "Cody was literally like the crew jokester and he kept everyone's spirits high and he always had some bad pun to make everyone laugh."

The youth are going home with new friends as well. The six-person crew included two people from Bozeman and one from Helena.

"I made a couple new friends from Bozeman," Lorentz said. "It was a good way to meet new people and experience people other than those from a small town."

Hinchey said the trip provided her with the opportunity to get to know Lorentz and Stevenson better. Because of their differences in age, she didn't know them well before the trip.

Connection with others is the program's true purpose according to Ehlers.

"That's really why we're out there," he said. "The work with the Forest Service, like the actual physical work, is kind of the excuse to get youth out in the wilderness in small group settings to get to know themselves and their community."