Collazo, 17, is a city kid with a woodman’s job. The T.C. Williams High School student is spending his summer with the Student Conservation Association, working with a crew of teens to build trails, plant trees and restore natural habitats. Collazo and his co-workers took a break from the outdoors last week and traveled to Capitol Hill to applaud the Public Lands Service Corps Act of 2009, helping to fund programs like his.
What do you do every day? I have to be at the Rosslyn Metro at 7:45 each morning, then we drive from there to our site for the day, usually in Northern Virginia. We rebuild trails, we weed around the trees, we mulch, anything the park needs done. We use a lot of different tools, we plant things — there’s a lot of stuff that we do.
What’s on your mind when you’re working? For me, every time I start to zone out, I think, ‘What should I do next?’ Or ‘Am I doing this well? Am I doing it right?’ I just like to stay busy.
Do you ever think about school or schoolwork? Mostly it makes me want to read more books about nature. It’ll be tough to go back to school after spending summer outdoors, but now I know that in class, when they ask about trees, I’ll be the first one with my hand up.
Do you have a favorite tree? I don’t know the real name, but there’s one we call the Froot Loop tree because the leaves smell like Froot Loops.
So, overall, this is a better way to spend your summer than working inside? I love doing the hands-on things. I love to be able to work outside, and to help nature, to help the trees survive. This is a really good job. I’d recommend it to anyone.
