Economic Impacts of Parks, Rivers, Trails and Greenways

Necedah National Wildlife Refuge available at http://midwest.fws.gov/Necedah/Washington Conservation Corps, http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/sea/wcc/index.html,and communication with staff, Nick Mott and Lorie Bamer; July 15, 2004.3.1.6 Additional InformationConservation Corps ProgramsYouth conservation corps programs are usually full-time and offer the opportunity for workexperience and education to young people within the framework of community service.There are about 120 corps programs nationwide (listed at the bottom of this section),enrolling 26,000 participants annually. There are 21 statewide programs and many localitiesmanage their own programs, bringing the number of states with conservation corps up to32. Participants are usually educationally or economically disadvantaged young peoplebetween the ages of 18 and 25, and most participants are persons of color. More than halfwere high school drop-outs when they joined and 80% did not work during the year beforeenrolling in the corps. Nearly half reported that their households were receiving some formof public assistance—AFDC, general relief, or food stamps. While working in the corps,participants receive a stipend, generally around minimum wage. Often, graduates of theprogram are eligible for post-program educational stipends or small cash awards.Total funding coming from grants, contracts and contributions on the federal, state andlocal level for all conservation corps programs is $338,746,537. The breakdown of corpsfunding sources is shown below.Table 4. Source of Conservation Corps FundingState/County/Municipal Appropriations & Grants 42.3%Federal Grants 26.4%State/Local/Private Fee-for-Service Contracts 21.0%Federal Fee-for-Service Contracts 4.8%Other 5.5%TOTAL 100%A cost benefit analysis was performed on the four youth corps programs that were thelargest, most established corps programs within a larger study. These programs hadcompleted the program startup phase and thus effectively represented the stable functioningof youth corps programs. The monetary results demonstrate how valuable these publicinvestments are. They produced an average of almost $600 in net benefits to society foreach participant as shown below. Non-monetary benefits may include impacts on theparticipant’s civic, social, and personal development, reduced risk behavior, strengthenedcollaborations and community networks as well as other indirect benefits to community.The study showed that there was a statistically significant reduction in the percentage ofindividuals arrested after participating in the corps program.16