2 AmeriCorps Members Join Sudbury Valley Trustees For Year of Service

Photos and press release submitted to SOURCE media.

***

[broadstreet zone=”53130″]

SUDBURY – Two members of the national AmeriCorps service program recently started an 11-month term of service at Sudbury Valley Trustees (SVT), a nonprofit organization that conserves land in the region around the Sudbury, Assabet, and Concord Rivers.

Sudbury Valley Trustees welcomes first-year AmeriCorps member Jonathan Haarstick as Community Engagement Coordinator.He is a recent graduate of UMass Amherst, where he majored in marketing and minored in natural resource conservation.

He will work with SVT’s Development and Community Engagement staff to increase public support for land protection, revitalization, and conservation
initiatives. He also will work to develop culturally inclusive programming, partnerships, and events.

“I am very excited to be a part of SVT as an AmeriCorps member,” said Haarstick. “I am looking forward to implementing my projects to build on the great work that SVT is doing in the region!”

[broadstreet zone=”58610″]

Sudbury Valley Trustees also welcomes back Matthew Morris, who is returning for a second year of service as Land Stewardship Coordinator. In his first term, Matthew, who earned a bachelor’s degree in wildlife and conservation biology from the University of New Hampshire, assisted with program development for the Native Pollinator Task Force, produced guidance booklets on field management and forest health, and trained volunteers and partners on wildlife culvert passage evaluations.

In the coming year, Morris will continue to support the NPTF, will train volunteers to assess forest health, and will expand
stewardship volunteer capacity in the region.

“SVT does great work for the community and its TerraCorps members. I am looking forward to continuing many of the programs I started during my first term,” said Morris.

[broadstreet zone=”58892″]

The two joined Sudbury Valley Trustees through TerraCorps, a Massachusetts-based program that places AmeriCorps members at organizations that protect land and support environmental sustainability.

AmeriCorps is a national program that annually places more than 75,000 Americans in service at nonprofit organizations and educational institutions. SVT has hosted 19 AmeriCorps members over the past 11 years, many of whom now hold positions at conservation organizations across the country.

Laura Mattei, Trustees Director of Stewardship, has supervised numerous AmeriCorps members for the organization, and she has strong praise for the program.

“TerraCorps-AmeriCorps trains our future conservation leaders. The AmeriCorps members gain hands-on experience with planning and executing
conservation projects, and the host sites benefit from the energy and enthusiasm of young conservationists. The members who have served at SVT have enabled us to expand our efforts to conserve land, restore wildlife habitats, and engage more volunteers.”

***