"They must have their chance," he said.

And he gave that chance to five million young Americans

The United States had a President, once, who believed in the young people of this nation. He was an inspired and intelligent national leader who made a concrete, positive difference in nearly five million lives, by giving them a chance to learn and to give back when America was in need.

In the midst of America’s devastating Great Depression of the 1930s, Franklin Roosevelt pledged to provide direct relief to thousands of lost and floundering young American men who were unemployed and not in school, and who, consequently, had little promise of a productive future. In order to combat this nationwide crisis, in 1933 Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), saying:

I have determined that we shall do something for the Nation’s unemployed youth because we can ill afford to lose the skill and energy of these young men.  They must have their chance in school, their turn as apprentices, and their opportunity for jobs—a chance to work and earn for themselves.

The plan called for enrollment of single men, ages 16 to 24, from all over the country, to carry out conservation and construction projects in America's neglected public lands, forests, and parks. The enrollees were to live outdoors in military-style camps and work together in crews of up to 200 men each on forest protection and restoration, wildlife and range management, and improvement of recreational areas in every state.

These young men often found themselves working in the wide, wild open spaces of the west, improving streams, constructing facilities for recreation, building and maintaining trails, bridges and fences. They cleared huge burn areas, planted trees, cut firebreaks and cleaned forest floors to help prevent further damage from wildfires. As they learned and worked, they were given food, clothing and living quarters, and each enrollee was paid $30 a month — equivalent in purchasing power to $650 a month today.

In the course of the CCC’s nine year history, nearly three million young men, living in 2,900 camps, took part in the program. It proved to be one of the most beneficial of President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, producing a record of accomplishment that has never, as yet, been repeated on a national scale.

The CCC had already employed thousands of young men on public lands projects for over two years when the corresponding National Youth Administration was established in 1935. The NYA filled two needs that the CCC did not:

• It provided for the education and employment of young women, and

• presented a greater variety of vocational training needed by young people as a whole.

The intention of the NYA was to help young men and women stay in school, develop adult life skills and build practical skills for securing future employment. The hope of both the CCC and the NYA was to lift up the youth of the country and help them achieve a way of life that would also change the course and the effects of the Depression.

NYA enrollees trained for many different trades. Both men and women learned to build or renovate furniture, do automotive repair, work in aviation mechanics and other mechanical work. They became skilled carpenters, cabinet makers, and masons, as well.

Young women were 43% of the NYA, and were also given what was, at that time, gender-specific training, including preparing and serving million of lunches to school children, library services, health care services, preparation of hospital supplies and sewing. NYA women sewed over three million articles of clothing to distribute to needy families – and to the workforce of the CCC.

Aside from learning and applying new skills, NYA enrollees also engaged in a wide variety of public works and public service projects. They repaired and built schools, libraries, gymnasiums and dormitories; contributed to the construction of public buildings and warehouses; built or rebuilt athletic fields; and carried out building maintenance and landscaping of public grounds. They built millions of feet of highways, roads, sidewalks and paths. The workers of the NYA, as you can see, gave back as much as they received.

Overall, from 1933 to 1944, through the combined efforts of the NYA and the CCC, nearly five million young American men and women received vocational training, found work, and improved their education — and they raised their self-esteem through their service back to their country.

These programs provided the means necessary for a struggling generation to overcome the economic dilemma enveloping the country and stimulated advancements in America that helped the nation rise out of the chaos of the Great Depression and WWII.

Work experience opportunities for young people in the forestry service today:

• The Youth Conservation Corps (YCC), sponsored by the US Forestry Service today, hosts summer youth employment programs for women and men ages 15 to 19 in thirty-six sites across the nation . Learn more about the contemporary YCC Forest Service programs HERE

• The California Conservation Corps (CCC) has been alive and well for the last 46 years. Their recruitment motto is ‘Hard Work, Low Pay, Miserable Conditions and More!’  They are dedicated to developing young women and men into “citizens with character, credentials, and commitment”. Learn more about this fine State-sponsored program for young people HERE .

On a more personal note, my mother was an NYA girl in 1938 in Butte, Montana. She developed fine sewing skills that she subsequently passed down to me so that I could augment my own income. My son was in the Youth Conservation Corps for an entire summer at the age of 15. He ended every day exhausted from physically taxing, authentic, meaningful work and was proud of it. He entered the YCC as a boy and three months later, he had become an adult. The transformation was startling.

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Sharron Bassano