Solar Youth Inc. green jobs interns spent a recent Saturday tackling litter and trash around the Wintergreen Brook.
The green jobs internship is designed to open opportunities for high school youth to be paid interns who get to design and complete community improvement projects.
This spring, interns designed a project to help clean up the trail along the Wintergreen Brook, which they often travel to learn about nature. The brook runs right behind Westville Manor, a large Housing Authority of New Haven complex, located next to West Rock, where most of the youth live with their families.
Solar Youth, Inc. and the cities Livable City Initiative (LCI) partnered in the clean-up event to pick up litter and bulk trash in the Wintergreen Brook with Solar Youth and other community volunteers on Saturday.
Jillian Driscoll, Westville/West Hills neighborhood specialist with LCI, and Lana Bluege, green jobs manager with Solar Youth, handed out flyers, advertised at the Westville/West Hills CMT, and were leaders during Saturday’s event making it a success.
The interns were supplied trash grabbers, gloves, and trash bags to de-litter the Wintergreen Brook and made quite an impact in their three hours of work. To celebrate, a pizza lunch and hanging of a “Stay Clean, Stay Green” sign the interns made, was hung along the brook as a reminder to community members.
