Northwest Youth Corps

★Jacob Baughman

Northwest youth corps came and did some work on my street in West Eugene. I have no idea what the work was but what I can say is that they left a fair amount of wood chips just on the street in front of my house. I called them last week, same day, left a voicemail and they never called back. Unprofessional and unacceptable, leaving messes for others to clean up.

★K P

In early March of 2025 NWYC came onto my property without notice or permission and clearcut vegetation posing no threat to the power lines. Not only did they trespass while doing this, they also cut beyond their scope of experience, leaving all small stumps at a dangerous height, instead of property stumping them to a safe required level.

★★★★★Mckenzie Carpenter

Best thing i ever did! The things this experience with teach you are invaluable, and on top of that you the most amazing memories to look back on. i was on a backcountry saw crew, i got my chainsaw certification my first week and went on to do great things for our forests/wildlife/community. full transparency it was the hardest thing i’ve done, and there were many things i had to learn to deal with such as one weekly shower and laundry trip, hiking up to 8 miles with a 50+ lb pack, i hiked 13 miles one work day, learning to communicate effectively with 5 strangers i was now camping and working with for 70 days whom i’d never met before which was challenging at first, and worked 10 hour days 4 days a week. thankfully i had the most amazing crew lead, and he was there for me through the hardest parts and helped me push through everything, all of these “hardships” people are complaining about in these reviews taught me life lessons that i’ll carry with me for the rest of my life and i wouldn’t trade my season or crew for anything. the rural living taught me how to be appreciative of our forests and the regular everyday amenities we take for granted here at home. i will be doing this program at 1-2 times a year, highly recommend!!

★★Hannah Q

I was on yellow crew fall 2022 for Idaho conservation Corps. I was looking forward to an educational experience that would help me figure out what to do with my life (forestry related stuff). The crew leader I was assigned to had never been camping in their life prior to starting the program. Lack of experience is easy to look past until you get put into dangerous situations by somebody who doesn’t know what they’re doing. Peak fire season, my crew was in backcountry. The forest service issued radio was broken by the crew leader. Accidents happen, but that was our only direct communication with anybody including Couer D’Alene dispatch; meaning if we were being told to evacuate, we would have no idea. We should have immediately (or at least the following day) hiked up, driven to the ranger station & told the rangers about what happened. But we actually just didn’t do anything and finished the hitch without a radio. It’s especially scary considering the two other crews in the program both had to do fire evacs. The work was not what I expected it to be, for example we spent a whole day destroying the green belt that was leaning against somebody’s fence, owners of the property complained to us and revealed that the green belt had been there for 20 years. The majority of our work was parks n rec type of stuff, at one point we were on our hands and knees pulling weeds. It was definitely not what I expected. Overall, I really liked the office staff & I met wonderful people but I felt that the crew leader did not possess the outdoors skills required to have made it a positive experience for me.

★★★★★PakRat 11

I did a session over the summer of 2017 and i had a great experience. Yes the work was very hard, and we had to evacuate 3 times from being rained out, to a wildfire driving us out, but we got through it and my group had a blast. Personally this was the best experience of my life, of course after getting over the uncomfortable things, but i will be doing two more sessions this year in the late summer and early fall. and in all honesty i thought the pay would be a little bit better but for the experience just over 1k was worth it