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YCC volunteers will work with simple tools purchased from proceeds from a $10,000 Centennial Grant from the Garden Club of Virginia.
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The Belle Isle YCC program enlists 10 crew and three crew leaders from across America.
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Belle Isle has had all-female crews because there is only one bunkhouse. This year, they will have all-male crews.
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The Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) will return to Belle Isle State Park this summer to help clean up the park and perform maintenance tasks, according to park manager Marceia Holland. YCC volunteers will work with simple tools purchased from proceeds from a $10,000 Centennial Grant from the Garden Club of Virginia. The grant application was made by the Garden Club Northern Neck.
Funds from this grant will help with building the exhibits in the visitors’ center, with additional clean-up around the park mansion, and with the purchase of power tools, which will be used by the park staff, not the YCC.
“This grant that the Garden Club of Virginia spearheaded is extremely valuable in so many ways,” Holland said. “We would not be able to do the work in the visitors’ center without it. Nor would we be able to purchase the power tools.”
The Belle Isle YCC program enlists 10 crew and three crew leaders from across America. Last year, one crew member was from California.
Operated by the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, the YCC teenagers range in age from 14 to 17 country-wide. This year, there were 700 applications for 170 positions throughout Virginia.
For the past two years, Belle Isle has had all-female crews because there is only one bunkhouse. This year, they will have all-male crews. Crew members are paid a stipend of $500 at the end of their three-week program. The crew members provide their own transportation to Belle Isle State Park.
Belle Isle Park is sited along an arc of American history that begins in Jamestown and sweeps northward through Williamsburg, Yorktown, and the Middle Peninsula to come to a pleasant pause in Virginia’s Northern Neck—often called “the cradle of American democracy.” Its 2015 acquisition of the 18th century Belle Isle mansion, its proximity to many other historic properties in the Northern Neck, and its eco-fragile Rappahannock riverside location mean it is uniquely positioned to use the newly acquired but as yet unopened mansion and grounds to enhance the park’s overall appeal, bring in new audiences, and become a center of research, learning, and outdoor fun for visitors of all ages.
For more information visit dcr.virginia.gov/state-parks/belle-isle#general_information