海角大神

The sharp pounding of a sledgehammer echoes through the forest, joining the music of woodpeckers drilling in trees.

Brian Arthur is shattering large rocks into bits, or 鈥渃rush,鈥� along a trail on Tom Ball Mountain in western Massachusetts. His task is not only to help his crew form a retaining wall to protect some wetlands abutting the trail. It鈥檚 also to learn how to put teens in the thrall of the outdoors.

Mr. Arthur is serving on this bright April day with the nonprofit Greenagers as part of an AmeriCorps grant. He will use the skills he learns on the mountain to help lead paid crews of high schoolers doing similar tasks this summer. He says he hopes the teens have experiences like the ones he had as a child 鈥渇alling in love with nature.鈥澛� 聽

鈥淎 common goal鈥�

Greenagers, based in Berkshire County, aims to instill in teens the value of environmental stewardship. Its biggest and longest-running program employs crews of local high schoolers who help maintain trails, supervised by聽college-age leaders like Mr. Arthur. The crews do work such as clearing ground for new trails, spreading gravel for accessible paths, and removing invasive plants from community lands, in addition to undertaking more technical projects involving stonework. 聽

Today鈥檚 crew consists of three Greenagers staff members working alongside three AmeriCorps members, including Mr. Arthur.

Elia Del Molino, conservation director at Greenagers, is the head of the operation. To him, working on a trail crew is transformative. The entire experience is 鈥渏ust team building,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 mean, move this giant stone, build a [stone] staircase. You overcome those obstacles.鈥�

As technology 鈥� and its tendency to isolate people physically 鈥� has become more common, Mr. Del Molino says interest in Greenagers has increased. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he regularly received calls from parents hoping to get their kids out of the house and into the woods.聽

The nonprofit also teaches young people the skill of communication.

鈥淕roup work is the type of thing that everybody rolls their eyes at in high school,鈥� says Will Conklin, Greenagers鈥� founder and executive director. But, out in the beautiful nature of the Berkshires, something special happens. Teens 鈥渃ome together toward a common goal,鈥� he notes.

He also points out that many parents whose kids are involved with Greenagers have told him, 鈥淢y kid didn鈥檛 really want to go outside, or know what to do outside, and now they can鈥檛 get enough of it.鈥澛�

Guidance and easy camaraderie聽

Sam Del Molino, wearing a helmet and blue overalls, works with Mr. Arthur to slip a large stone into place on the half-built retaining wall. Sam is Elia鈥檚 younger brother and Greenagers鈥� conservation manager.聽

鈥淟ook at this; it鈥檚 perfect,鈥� says Sam Del Molino, surveying their work. Mr. Arthur quips, 鈥淎nd no one lost a finger.鈥�

Mr. Arthur is working toward a bachelor鈥檚 degree in environmental science or ecology. He started college in 2019, but his courses went remote in March 2020 at the start of the pandemic. He didn鈥檛 handle it well.

He and his roommates drifted apart as they sought to get away from campus, where the atmosphere was 鈥渘ot hopeless, but just not hopeful,鈥� he says. Syllabuses began to consist of videos instead of in-person instruction, and Mr. Arthur lost motivation to do well. He loves learning when he鈥檚 tromping through the woods, collecting samples of decomposing matter, or measuring the health of salamanders.聽

Mr. Arthur says his mental health was affected. He eventually found himself in his fourth year of college without enough credits to graduate, and a scholarship running out. He joined AmeriCorps hoping to use money from the program鈥檚 education award to finish his degree at a different college.

He started working with Greenagers last fall. But the organization lost its AmeriCorps contract after the Trump administration terminated $400 million in grants to AmeriCorps on April 25. Greenagers offered to pay the AmeriCorps members to work there through the end of their term in mid-August. As Mr. Arthur looks ahead to resuming college in the fall, he says his time with Greenagers has been a steppingstone to 鈥渁 more independent, leadership-driven position.鈥�

The crew is given a problem, and 鈥渢hen we come up with an idea for what to do. And then we do it,鈥� Mr. Arthur notes with pride.聽

The Del Molino brothers are 鈥渢here to guide us instead of just direct us,鈥� he adds.

Elia Del Molino, for example, teaches Mr. Arthur to drill holes in two rocks to attach them with rebar. The rock drill plugs into a bright red Honda generator, which crew members carry from their supply area on a wooden platform they affectionately call 鈥淕urney Sanders鈥� and 鈥淓rnie the Gurney.鈥�

While Mr. Arthur settles into the task, Elia Del Molino watches from a few feet away. Rock dust rises into the clear air as the steady buzz of the generator reverberates through the trees.聽

Embodying regional values

Founded as a program in 2007, Greenagers has grown dramatically, with more parents seeking to enroll their kids and more community members requesting its services than ever before. It is funded through government grants, donations, and money from clients such as municipalities and land trusts. The community recognizes that Greenagers offers solutions to some of the region鈥檚 most pressing issues, says Mr. Conklin.聽

William 鈥淪mitty鈥� Pignatelli, who represented parts of the Berkshires in the Massachusetts State House for 22 years, says a resident once told him, 鈥淪mitty, our natural beauty is more valuable than an oil well in Saudi Arabia.鈥� Mr. Pignatelli has been aware of Greenagers鈥� work to preserve this natural beauty for the past 10 or 15 years and has attended many of its events. He was 鈥渁ble to secure a state earmark in our state budget鈥� for the group for each of the past few years, he notes.

Jacob Kulyniak started at Greenagers as a summer crew member during high school and plans to pursue a career in conservation. Greenagers 鈥渂roke me out of my shell,鈥� he says, noting that he found building a stone staircase especially rewarding. 鈥淚 realized ... this is going to be here for the remainder of my life, probably, if not longer,鈥� he says.聽