Block Island enriches the lives of three young men from New York City

Crew (Mentor Max, with interns, Yazhan, Ishmael and Michael) before heading to work at The Nature Conservancy's office.

This summer, The Nature Conservancy’s Block Island office welcomed three interns and a mentor from New York City as part of the Conservancy’s Internship Program for City Youth. This program places teams of inner-city students at Conservancy programs throughout the northeast. The interns work under the guidance of their mentor and on-site Conservancy staff and receive on-the-job training in land stewardship, educational outreach and scientific research in a safe and supervised natural environment

The interns, Yazhan Lin, Ishmael Akahoho, and Robert Mainor II, and their mentor Max Sugiura, helped with checking on the federally endangered American burying beetle broods, pulling the invasive black swallowwort at Lewis Farm, pulling the invasive mile-a-minute-weed at Fresh Swamp Preserve, trail work with Conservancy preserve steward Adrian Mitchell, monitoring preserves for visitor use, and educating the public about the federally-threatened piping plover on Mansion Beach where it is nesting.

This nationally-recognized program was launched in 1995 and is a partnership with the Friends of the High School for Environmental Studies and the Brooklyn Academy of Science and the Environment. This unique partnership couples environmental school curricula in urban nature with real world conservation work on nature preserves across the Northeast.

In this, the fifteenth year of the program, 39 students were placed on preserves in eight different states. Students learn about career opportunities in conservation, complete four 35-hour paid work weeks, and visit three colleges. Most of these urban students have never had the opportunity to connect with the natural world or explore colleges outside of the city. The students develop critical life and workplace skills while living independently, away from their friends and families. They participate in demanding field work, manage time sheets and budgets, work as a team, cook, clean, and do laundry. The program demands physical and intellectual motivation, multi-cultural exchange, conflict-resolution, responsibility, and career development exercises.

On Block Island this crew fit right in working side-by-side with the many assistants and volunteers helping this summer. There was an amazing exchange of ideas and cultures during their time on the island. Their impressions of their month on the island were summed up in final papers, which we’ve excerpted here for you to enjoy. We wish all three interns the best of luck and hope to see them back on the island very soon.

Yazhan Lin

All of us four just like a family lived in the comfortable/beautiful/natural/friendly Block Island. We cooked together, we danced together, we jogged together, we debated together, we played card games together and we worked together. We really had a happy moment in Block Island. And I feel thankful to TNC that I can have this kind of chance. I don’t know if I still have this kind of chance to live with people who are as special as them.

Robert Mainor II

The town of New Shoreham is clean and so are the beaches. There is an aura in this city with tints of environmentalism and having a good time. Though [Block Island] is small, it compensates with its appreciation of maritime activities. Through kayaking and sailing. I have truly found my passion in maritime activities.The island is not New York City, but it makes me realize the excesses in my vicinity. I just can’t describe what Block Island has done for me, it is just ineffable.

Ishmael Akahoho

Before attending the TNC internship I volunteered a lot at Prospect Park [in New York City]. I felt it was just onepark and that it couldn’t make a difference in the world. But this opinion changed after this month. Why? You may ask. Well it is because the work we did like swallow wort [removal] and plover [management] opened my eye. Even though we did these work in Block Island the passerby always evaluated the many things we did and even though they didn’t know why we did what we did after asking us questions they always told us that they will do their best to help in every way they could.