From the National Park Service:
By Mikayla Rovenolt
High school students and recent graduates helped the National Park Service replace a Depression-era footbridge at the Morristown National Historic Park’s Jockey Hollow area this month.
All the students are affiliated with the Stephen T. Mather Building and Arts High School, a partner of the National Park Service.
Some of the graduates are training to become teachers at Mather High School, in the Hell’s Kitchen section of New York City, through the Success Via Apprenticeship (SVA) program.
Others are employed by American Conservation Experience’s Emerging Professionals in Conservation program (ACE EPIC).
The current students helped with the project through the Student Conservation Association (SCA).
Morristown park rangers and trail volunteers celebrated with an Aug. 19, 2022, ribbon-cutting at the bridge, on the Old Camp Trail.
Video by Mikayla Rovenolt:
https://youtu.be/8clVpU5PVH8
The project was needed because soil and stones supporting the bridge had eroded, making it unsafe to use. Built in 1939 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, the bridge was last fixed in 1993.
The restoration is part of the National Park Service’s continuous efforts to preserve and restore parks and facilities. The NPS Historic Architecture, Conservation, and Engineering (HACE) team led the project, which the students and recent graduates completed.
“Currently, we’re working for the smaller parks in this [Morristown] area doing incremental projects that HACE is equipped to do with small staffs in smaller parks,” said Tim Henderson, a member of the New York HACE team.
Mather graduates Maximilian McKinley and Adam Richardson were assigned to the project as part of the ACE EPIC program.
ACE EPIC’s mission is to provide recent graduates with hands-on work experience alongside mentors, to prepare them as “the next generation of resource and land managers.”
Joining them was another Mather graduate, Joshua Rivera, ‘18, who is working to become a career technical educator at Mather High School. Rivera was assigned to the project by the SVA program.
“I’m currently on my worksite rotation so my internship is with the NPS,” Rivera explained. “I just finished up my school site internship with Mather so I am placed in the industry for the summer, until September, and then I’ll be right back at Mather.”
For the Student Conservation Association students, this project offered work experience and opportunities to meet other students and learn about public service. Their group leader, Docker Clark, said their job involved assisting with removal of the old bridge and filling in the dug-up trail for the new, lengthened span.
“We’re not just working on this bridge, we’ve worked on some other places as well,” Clark said. “We’ve hiked around pretty much this entire park and I’ll stop the kids periodically on these hikes and we’ll talk about certain environmental concepts…alongside this trail work.”
Matthew Jacobs, student liaison between Mather High School and the NPS, emphasized the importance of this kind of work to various communities.
“I think it’s really cool that now, 2022, these Mather students have been able to make their mark and continue the legacy” of the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s, Jacobs said. “Young people do really meaningful work for the parks and the visitors that come through here.”
Mikayla Rovenolt is an intern with the National Park Service.
