• Bear Cieri
• Saoirse Rain and Alexandria Thomas Tutt working on a lean-to at Little River State Park in Waterbury

The crew had been building a set of stairs on a beach access trail in Groton State Forest for nearly two weeks. A 32-foot section of the pathway next to a small stream had washed away during last July's flooding, and the six team members were installing wooden steps on the slope to restore the trail.

As the sweaty crew members huddled together, calculating the rise and fall of the stairs for what felt like the umpteenth time, Saoirse Rain, a 23-year-old from Wisconsin, let out a chuckle.

"There are people who have been vacationing here for, like, 50 years," she said. "But I don't think anyone's spent as much time as we have on these steps."

Rain and her fellow crew members described that scene to Seven Days. All in their twenties, they work for the Richmond-based Vermont Youth Conservation Corps, which has long employed young people for seasonal maintenance projects in the state's natural spaces — building trails, removing invasive vegetation and repairing man-made improvements. But in the wake of last year's catastrophic flooding across Vermont, VYCC crews are more focused than ever on remedying flood damage in ways that will minimize destruction by future storms.

For the young people involved in the arduous work of flood repair, the shift in focus is an opportunity to take action in the face of their climate anxiety.

• Bear Cieri
• Alexandria Thomas Tutt

"There's a lot of youth who feel like there's nothing to be done and everything's crashing around them," said Alexandria Thomas Tutt, a 27-year-old member of the Groton crew who hails from Florida. "For me, at least, getting into this line of work and being able to help even a little bit allows me to deal with that feeling."

Each year, nearly 150 teens and twentysomethings participate in 80,000 hours of paid service through the nonprofit VYCC, learning new skills, building character and forging bonds through often difficult outdoor work. Though most of the work is seasonal, the Groton crew is a first-of-its-kind year-round workforce.

Most teams are composed of six to eight members and two leaders. They carry out service projects, often in state parks, but also for municipalities, conservation districts and private groups such as the Green Mountain Club. Many crew members spend the season living in tents near projects in remote locations.

Among a dozen or more flood recovery projects this year, VYCC crews will fix treadways and install trail drainage on Spruce Mountain in Plainfield; repair damage along the Lake Elmore shoreline; and rebuild flood-ravaged lean-tos on trails around the state. This fall, a crew focused on improving water quality will plant 6,000 willow trees along riverbanks. The trees, which soak up plenty of water, can help river corridors better absorb heavy rainfall.

The 2023 floods have also led VYCC to expand into housing recovery. The organization has dispatched a carpentry crew to Barre to help fix flood-damaged homes. The aim is twofold: to preserve much-needed housing and to spark crew members' interest in the trades. While corps members have done conservation work on private property before, the Barre project is the first of its kind.

"Getting involved in this initiative was sort of a no-brainer," said Stephen Cohen, conservation build project manager. "We can put people to work on service-based projects where they're not only learning applicable skills but also directly impacting Vermonters' ability to access housing."

• Courtesy Of Kalyn Cook
• Vermont Youth Conservation Corps members

As they tackle their flood restoration projects in Vermont's woods, crews will do so in ways designed to help trails stand up to future storms. Such work is familiar to VYCC, according to Jenn Krebs, conservation senior operations manager for the corps. Over the past few years, crew work has shifted from building new trails to improving existing ones. With heavier rains, mud season is longer than ever, Krebs said, requiring greater flood-mitigation efforts.

"Our partners are not asking for new trails," Krebs said. "They're trying to shed water from their existing trails."

Crew members build culverts and install stone stairwells that divert rainwater and prevent erosion, often hiking with all the tools and supplies they'll need for the day. Trail work is arduous, requiring hours of manual labor and a commitment to teamwork. Some crews will spend days just moving rocks. Other times, book smarts are necessary: Members might need to use geometry or algebra to calculate the rise of a new set of stairs or figure out the ideal dimensions of a moldering toilet, a type of backwoods privy.

And at the end of the workday, VYCC members find there's no escaping one another. Most crews live and work together, returning to a makeshift tent camp to make dinner and prepare for tomorrow's work. At night, temperatures can drop into the teens.

"You are in a remote place, stuck together doing things that often kind of suck. There's bugs in your face, and it's really hot," said Katie Vartenigian, a 25-year-old Marylander on the Groton crew. "And yet, that somehow becomes a good memory."

Despite the drudgery, "We are seeing demand from young people who are wanting to do this work," Krebs said, adding that some of this year's applicants were motivated by the 2023 flooding and hope to help reduce the effect of future storms. Some corps members hail from other states and learn about the program through AmeriCorps, which the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps partners with on some positions.

On the trails, too, corps members will learn high-demand skills that also contribute to flood recovery. According to Reuben Allen, the chief of operations for Vermont State Parks, their work has become invaluable.

"If we didn't have assistance from the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps trail crews, it would be a stretch to think that we would get all the work done that we critically need to get done," Allen said.

Thomas Tutt and the other members of the yearlong conservation crew said they hope most Vermonters fail to notice their weeks of labor on the beach access trail. As they took a lunch break around a picnic table, they said they want their work to allow walkers to focus on the beauty around them, not the footing.

"As much as I would appreciate someone saying thank you for this hard work, I'm just thankful if they think the trail looks nice or feels nice under their feet or if it hasn't washed out by the time they get there," said Hank Kelly, 22, a New Jerseyite.

"We'll know we did a good job if no one notices what we did," Vartenigian agreed with a chuckle.

With that, the conservation crew members packed up their lunch and readied their tools. There was work to be done before the end of the day.

Disclosure: Rachel Hellman was a member of the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps in fall 2020. Now she's a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. Hellman covers small towns for Seven Days. Find out more at reportforamerica.org.