Early this year, we wrote letters to the principals of all 88 high schools in Allegheny County asking them to nominate one sophomore and one junior (one boy, one girl) to the initial congress for the Allegheny Conservation Corps, an initiative for high school students to create community projects. The idea was threefold: physically improve their communities; build their connection with Pittsburgh as part of a long-term retention strategy (I planted that tree — this is my home); and change the national narrative of Pittsburgh from old and Rust Belt to young and green.
In early March, 25 schools and 50 students met for lunch overlooking the city at LeMont restaurant. Andy Masich of the Heinz History Center regaled them with and pointed to the historic events that happened in Pittsburgh. In early April, the Pirates hosted the group at PNC Park, and the students began devising their community projects that would occur this fall (the Pirates won in 11 innings!).
Over the summer, the students honed their projects and in September, October and November, some 300 students from 15 high schools created and led a variety of community projects all over the county. Through this pilot project, we learned two key lessons: the students do want to get involved in their communities and their city, and they love getting together and meeting counterparts from other schools.
Beginning early next year, this pilot will grow into a county-wide youth leadership program, a key Pittsburgh Tomorrow project to turn this region around and reinvigorate its future. But let’s see what a small sampling of the students involved had to say:
Sunny Pham, The Ellis School: “Hannah Buck and I heard of Pittsburgh Tomorrow through our school counselors and were invited to a luncheon in March. We really were inspired by Pittsburgh Tomorrow’s goals and plans for Pittsburgh. During the luncheon we met so many people and still today I keep in contact with a few. We decided to help give back to the community and environment through creating a composting project at the Sarah Heinz House garden. Overall, this was wonderful and a great experience I really am grateful to be able to be a part of.”
Eliana Bou Samra and J.J Ortiz, Aquinas Academy: “We organized pickup of plastic and aluminum recycling. We also implemented composting into our cafeteria and expanded the recycling to all three branches of our school (upper, middle and lower). Last, we created a society which takes care of recycling and composting. We also are working on projects which focus on beautifying the campus with new flowers, herbs and trees. Our favorite part of this project was getting to see the little kids excited with starting composting. We were happy to see the future high school students getting excited over making a positive impact on the environment.”
Maria Sirianni and Chiara Zeitler, Sewickley Academy: “We became involved with this project when our college counselors suggested joining Pittsburgh Tomorrow’s Allegheny Conservation Corps. After hearing about their mission, we became inspired to take action to conserve our community. We worked with the Sewickley Heights and Edgeworth boroughs to plant milkweed plants to propagate monarch butterfly populations.”
Sam Mrozinski-Strehl, North Hills High School chemistry teacher: “Our project began with the Allegheny Conservation Corps. We were brainstorming ideas and the lead student — Liv Miller — decided our focus would be to raise awareness and money to purchase land in Ross Township to protect the Girty’s Run Watershed and prevent flooding in the Shaler Area. So we partnered directly with the Allegheny Land Trust and Shaler Area High School’s Sustainability Club to bring together this community fundraising event. The project directly impacts Ross and Millvale, which have had major flooding in the last several years. If we can conserve this piece of land, we can prevent more flooding and pollution.”
Liv Miller, North Hills High School: “I wanted to help make Pittsburgh greener and ultimately a place where the community can enjoy the outdoors and the beautiful forests of Western Pennsylvania. I was thrilled to be able to do something for the community with so many other people, and have such a large turnout at the same time. We were able to raise over $3,000 for the land purchase. This entire project has given me an incredible sense of accomplishment and so much hope after seeing the community come together for this cause.”
Ezra Moon, Mt. Lebanon High School: “When I was invited to the first meeting of Pittsburgh Tomorrow’s Allegheny Conservation Corps, I immediately knew I wanted to get involved. My goal was to establish connections between the high school and nature conservancy, contributing to a local tradition of students getting involved in environmental stewardship. Our project involved tearing out invasive species and planting trees at Bird Park.
“The most satisfying part was the enthusiasm of the volunteers on the second workday. That morning was unexpectedly cold, and we had a homecoming dance that afternoon, so I wasn’t sure how many of the people who signed up would turn out. Fortunately, there were only a few people who weren’t able to make it, and those who did come seemed perfectly happy to be there. As I kept checking up on volunteers, apologizing for the cold weather, and offering to take over their work so they could do something easier, they all smiled and assured me that they were glad to be part of taking care of the park. For most of us, planting trees was probably the most exciting part. I was pleased to hear that some friend groups had even named their trees, intending to check on them in future years. Learning about or observing nature is great, but there is nothing that compares to truly interacting with it and getting your hands dirty to help it. The friends that named their trees represent exactly what I hoped for: a lasting sense of responsibility towards the land.”
A journalistic innovator, Heuck has been writing about Pittsburgh for 37 years, as an investigative reporter and business editor at The Pittsburgh Press and Post-Gazette and as the founder of Pittsburgh Quarterly. His newspaper projects ranged from living on the streets disguised as a homeless man to penning the only comprehensive profile in the latter years of polio pioneer Dr. Jonas Salk to creating a statistical means of judging regional progress that has led to similar projects across the country. Heuck's work has won numerous national, state and local writing awards. His work has been cited in the landmark media law case "Food Lion vs. ABC news."
