Funded by the County of Sonoma, the Sonoma County Youth Ecology Corps (SCYEC) provides youth and young adults from across the county with meaningful, paid work experience, environmental education, and the opportunity to explore careers and develop work-readiness skills. Every year, CCNB has at least one crew working with SCYEC, learning firsthand alongside leaders from agencies like Sonoma County Regional Parks and Sonoma Water. This work benefits the community while strengthening corpsmembers' understanding of the connection between education and occupational skills.

As part of the SCYEC, CCNB crews maintain miles of waterways, trails, and complete fire fuel reduction work on the County’s vulnerable public lands, including Spring Lake and Santa Rosa Creek. Our corpsmembers perform flood prevention and stream maintenance in these areas, preparing themselves for county careers in the environmental sector where they will be part of a trained workforce to continue this increasingly-important mitigation work.

Corpsmembers work in a six-month paid internship within the County in one of the following fields: Water Operations, Water Education, Water Environmental, Water Stream Maintenance, or Regional Parks. Many of our corpsmembers go on to be hired as seasonal or regular employees by the agency that they interned with immediately after completing CCNB's program, allowing newer corpsmembers to see possibilities are quite literally in their reach.

CCNB Corpsmember Highlighted by California Association of Local Conservation Corps

Our corpsmember Omar was highlighted by California Association of Local Conservation Corps (CALCC) earlier this month. He said, "You have hands on work, you can see the direct impact, and it’s emotionally fulfilling. The corps also helps with housing, anything you might be struggling with. Whether it’s personal or public, CCNB is great at helping with that stuff, which makes you want to be here andtake as much advantage of those resources as you can."

See the highlight on CALCC's Facebook page here.