College Students Clean Trash from Current River

The Conservation Leadership Corps Stream Team was pleased to find very little trash to clean up on the Current River.

The Conservation Leadership Corps (CLC) is the Conservation Federation of Missouri’s (CFM) program for engaging high school and college students in conserving Missouri’s natural resources. The program trains these students to become tomorrow’s conservation leaders. This training includes boots on the ground efforts, which some CLC students experienced last weekend while conducting a Stream Team Cleanup on a stretch of the Current River.

It’s surprising how much fun it is to clean up trash, especially when doing so with a bunch of friends while floating a beautiful river. For the CLC cleanup, there were 14 people including students, staff and volunteers. We were pleased to see very little trash along the river, which made the competition for collecting litter more intense. There were canoe races to the bank for any little piece of garbage and dives into deep holes to scour the bottom for old cans.

Our Stream Team floated from Pulltite to Round Spring. Collectively, we didn’t pickup enough trash to fill one of the big green Stream Team sacks carried by each boat. I think the lack of trash is a testament to Missourians care and appreciation of our gorgeous rivers, resulting from increased efforts by our state agencies and conservation organizations to encourage folks to take more pride in our rivers and not litter. Whatever is causing people to litter less is working, and I’m proud to see it.

CFM recently added a new fulltime position to lead the organization’s youth programs. Jen Sampsell, a former high school science teacher, is now the CFM Education and Outreach Coordinator.

“As CLC expands expectations are increasing. It is important to get the students engaged and actively involved in their communities. My goal is for the students to develop and lead conservation events of their own choosing in their communities, which could be their hometown, their school or a club. By creating events like the Stream Team cleanup, which was thought up by a few CLC students, we are giving them an opportunity to feel like they are making a real difference. Which is important, because they truly are,” Sampsell said.

Facing continued urban sprawl and significant population increases across our country, it is essential a strong conservation ethic be passed on to the next generation. Not just boots on the ground, but also strong political advocacy work is going to be needed by future generations. CLC offers students a unique opportunity to influence conservation policy and actions at a young age, so hopefully they’ll continue to do so throughout their lives.

The overarching goal of CLC is that no matter where their chosen careers lead theses CLC students, they’ll be prepared and motivated to personally influence policy and actions contributing to the conservation of natural resources.

“The students who participated in the cleanup already want to come back and do more. We are offering students opportunities to help out at Explore the Outdoors regional events, Pull for Conservation events, Prairie Fork Conservation Area work days, and other events throughout the year.  It is a great learning experience for them and there is something for everyone even with their diverse interests,” Sampsell said.

If you know a student who would benefit by being part of the CLC, please encourage them to apply. Students must be juniors in high school through seniors in college to participate. Applications are available on the CFM website www.confedmo.org, or by calling the CFM office at 573-634-2322.

See you down the trail…

Brandon Butler