2023-Lincoln Hills Cares (Group #1) @ Bear Creek Lake Park

Start Date-End Date: 07/24/2023-07/25/2023 Land Manager Office: Land Manager Contact: Lee Blair Funding Partner: Great Outdoors Colorado Trust - GOCO Programmatic Partner: Lincoln Hills Cares Summary: VOC is hosting an event with Lincoln Hills Cares where their program participants will provide trail maintenance to the Carbon trail that has experienced a significant amount of damage due to the amount of rain this Spring/ Summer. Participants will be allowed to camp within the park. Description: Lincoln Hills Cares participants and staff will provide volunteer work for 2 days while staying overnight in a group campsite within the park. Bear Creek Lake Park maintenance staff will be on-site during the project to provide instruction and tools. Trail maintenance will include spreading new soil materials over damaged and washed out trails. Latitude/Longitude: 39.653539, -105.155483 Additional Information: Camping Available: Yes Physical Difficulty: Moderate High Altitude Project: No Desired Number of Volunteers: 15 Total Adult Volunteers Attended: Total Youth Volunteers Attended: Total Volunteer Days: Total Unique Volunteers: Total Volunteer Hours: 0 Staff Hours: 40 Stipend Hours: 0 Project Summary: The scope of work changed the morning of the first project day due to the Bear Creek Lake Park's immediate needs. Instead of working near trees or shaded area and spreading new soil materials, the worksite was changed to a super exposed, sunny area that entailed more intense manual labor than expected (using pickmatocks and roe-hoes to dig dirt on trail to back-fill rutted out parts of the trail). One LHC young adult supervisor was present for work with 13 youth from the Westwood LHC group. Lee, the Land Manager had 3 crew members to help direct students and work alongside them. Lee made sure to announce mandatory water breaks almost every half hour or so to make sure people were hydrated. I worked alongside the students as well until some students needed extra attention to sit out because of the heat (temps were reaching up to 100 degrees that day). Work began at 9am and they stopped for lunch at 11:30 due to the heat. After lunch, Braylen decided that the work would end and that the students would not camp that night either, taking everyone home. He said that other LHC groups in Denver were also having trouble working in the heat (not sure if a more serious incident happened?) and that he would feel better if the students could recover from the heat/ work in the comfort of their own homes, which led to the decision of cancelling the camping component of it. We decided to make the work start earlier the next day at 7am. Since the students knew what to do and it was much cooler/ cloudy, they got to work immediately and seemed much more honed into the work rather than focused on the conditions. However much less students showed up on the second day. There were 3 young adult supervisors present and 5 students (1 being a new student that was not there the first day). The students worked until 10:30am where we stopped work, Lee said his thank you to the crew and then they went to the Visitor Center to watch the Naturalist presentation. I said my Thank You, encouraged them to stay involved with VOC and left them to have their lunch/ enjoy the park (if they stayed). Successes and Challenges: Successes: -Students were relatively in a pretty good mood during all of the work, including the first really hot day. They communicated when they needed help and if they were not feeling well. The young adult LHC supervisors ensured water breaks were being taken and helped with assisting students as well. -Lee was good with the students and once he realized how much direction/ leadership was needed, he stayed the entire time with the students on the work site. -Students seemed to enjoy the Naturalist presentation -1,500 ft of trail was maintained between the 2 days which made it much safer for park visitors to use. -14 students joined us for a total of 6 hours each student between the 2 days -I plugged VOC's Cairn Program and some students did seem interested. Challenges: -Braylen was very slow with responding to communications pre-project. He said that the students would do 6-8 hours of work each day and the range of ages included 14-24, which may have included the young adult supervisor ages as well but the age range I saw was more like 13-17 for the students. This was hard because having kids that young out in the sun with hard work is a different concern than 18-24 year olds doing the same thing. He did not stay with us at the work site at all, he said that he needed to get other office work for LHC done and was behind on things. He did not give me the waivers that I asked for nor the signed Scope of Service on time. He would not give me a clear answer for weeks if there was still going to be a second group (as we has planned) or not, thus leaving my Lee and I's availability up in the air and at the mercy of his response. He was not communicative about VOC needing to purchase snacks or pay for any van rentals or anything for the project, but it may have helped things if we would have just told him we would do this in the beginning regardless. -Lee was very ambiguous with the type of work he needed done during the site visit. He was indicating that due to the intense rain we have had this summer, changes can happen and the project work was very up in the air but that there definitely was work that they could do. The last-minute change to work in understandable for park's needs but I still think we should have stuck to the original plan given the participants' ages, level of difficulty, and the high temperatures. -It was upsetting that the students did not get to camp in the park. A frustration for me that they did not get a more enjoyable experience out of the park, and a frustration for Lee who reserved that Group site, free of charge, for them and because of their work. I am skeptical that the camping equipment or maybe the food for the students at camp (dinner & breakfast) had not been purchased or brought yet since Braylen was quick to decide they wouldn't camp at all, not sure? It was suggested multiple times from Lee and I that the students could use the Swim Beach to cool off and actually enjoy the park but it sounds like they did not end up doing so. -Due to Braylen requesting to not work past noon, he asked if the Naturalist talk that was planned to be at 3pm after work the second day, be moved to 11am instead. This put stress on Lee to coordinate once again with the naturalist. Braylen also suggested that the students eat their lunch during the presentation, which Lee discouraged in the name of respect to the naturalist. -Some students were asking me for trail work guidance which is fine but I'm not sure if they thought that I actually worked at the park, not a separate entity as VOC. I would usually direct their question to Lee or his crew members. Lessons Learned: -We may need to plan these LHC events earlier in the summer (May or June) in order to be able to have the accessibility of a location in close proximity to the city due to the heat concerns over the last 2 years' events during July. That or we plan to have an event with them higher up in elevation during July/August when the temperatures are at least a little cooler, but that does require more planning/ coordination on VOC and Braylen's part. -Lee expressed his feelings about a VOC project like this being a little more coordination than he really has capacity/ time for. He agreed to the work because there is work he would like help on, but I think we both realized that it might be more hassle than what it's worth, especially for such little work hours and amount of people. Moving forward, we might have to avoid asking the park for coordinating a volunteer event unless they put in an actual application for work needing done. We should also look into land managers who have worked with youth before or has hosted more youth groups as they might be more understanding/ have better expectations for the work. Suggestions included: JeffCo Open Space -Being more upfront with Braylen or LHC staff that we will supply food/drinks, pay for van rentals, or pay for camping food so that there are no gaps in needs for the students to create a more enjoyable experience at these events. Special Notes: -It was mentioned from a couple of students that they really do this work partially because of the money that they earn from participating in the LHC Youth Pathways program. This was news to me before the work days and I'd be curious to know how that dynamic really works as it might advise how the students look at this experience. Some might do this to support their families or because they are too young to work in most work places. Stewardship Education: Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: -Too hot -Choose better land manager partner/location for youth -Need more communication/ organization from LHC staff Description of Accidents/Incidents: One student left the work site early on the first day because he said that he was having difficulty breathing. The student told me that it has only happened before when he was having an allergic reaction to pollen so he assumed that was what was happening but it may have been exasperated due to the heat. He said he has taken pills for it before but did not have any on his person. I had an antihistamine in my first aid kit for him to take, but I didn't want to make him take it if he didn't know how he might react to this kind. We sat down in the shade and he was still actively talking and I didn't hear any wheezing or such but a park ranger did come to check him out and drive him back to Braylen to take him home. A couple students started to say that they weren't feeling well near the end of the first day and they sat down in the shade a little bit before lunch. But they left along with the rest of the students after lunch. Description of Work Completed: