Renovation time for Northwest Youth Corps
EUGENE, Ore. - They are best known for putting hundreds of teenagers to work in the forests every summer.
The Northwest Youth Corps wants to do even more, but first they have to fix up their home base.
The sparks are flying this week at the Youth Corps campus in South Eugene as crews pull the old gas fired boilers out of the facility.
"It's lasted a long time. The boilers are still in great shape, but they're just no longer energy efficient," said Executive Director Art Pope.
Three renovation projects are under way. Construction workers are swarming over the former Laurel Hill school in this major makeover.
One of the workers is a former NW Youth Corps director.
"I love it. I love it here," contractor Jeff Parker told KVAL News. "It's a home away from home, and we're just proud to be a part of this. It's a great program."
It's $400,000 of work, and the bottom line here is long-term energy savings.
"We figure we'll be in the neighborhood of $28,000 per year in overall savings," Pope said.
That is money that can go toward Youth Corp programs and give more kids their first job.
"Our youth crews will work region wide and will do a lot of habitat enhancement work and a lot of it will be trail construction," Pope said.
Much of the renovation work is pretty obvious, but a lot of it you really can't see: It's happening above the classrooms, where 15,000 square feet of roof is being replaced.
Four grants are making all this work possible.
Community Relations manager Liz Karas of NW Youth Corps puts it this way: "It's necessary; you can't do everything in the woods. You need a good home base. Hopefully it will be a nice home for everyone."
All the work at Northwest Youth Corps should be finished before summer. Pope said they provide jobs for upwards of 1,000 teens each year, a number they hope to raise to 1,500 if thee savings projections hold true.
The Youth Corps is also in the running for a Eugene Water and Electric Board grant. They'll find out next week if they get the grant for a solar power PV project.
