Everywhere they go, Delaware Nature Society’s Trail Ambassadors are learning about nature and sharing the love as a way to connect city residents with nature.
By Ken Mammarella
The teens in Delaware Nature Society’s Trail Ambassadors program have different reasons for joining Kenyon Wilson’s view is one of the most eloquent.
“The community needs help caring for itself,” says the Salesianum School 10th-grader, who also wanted to get experience working outside and doing community service. “I want to encourage people to do simple things, like picking up trash, and I want to encourage them about caring for the environment. Little things can add up to big changes.”
As Trail Ambassadors for Delaware Nature Society, selected teens from New Castle County explore the environment and life skills. They in turn introduce nature to their friends, neighbors and others.
“I like the community, and I like the environment,” says Kareem Shakir, an 11th-grader at Howard High School who is in his third year as a Trail Ambassador. Since elementary school, he’s been dreaming of an environmental career, perhaps in parks management or environmental science. He is especially proud of cleaning up the new Southbridge Wetland Park in South Wilmington through Trail Ambassadors. “It’s a beautiful place, and it made me happy to clean it up,” he says. He is also grateful for skills he has developed through the program, such as leadership and communication.
“I wanted to try something that would be good for and learn something new,” says Kayla Blyden, an 11th grader at A. I. du Pont High School. “It brought me out of my comfort level.”
“I’ve always liked animals,” says Z-Khia McNeil, a ninth grader at Newark High School whose pets have included a cat, a dog, a turtle, fish and a chinchilla. “You learn new things, meet people and get new experiences.” Her background also includes helping with the garden at her grandmother’s home and appreciating the community garden the William “Hicks” Anderson Community Center near her home in Wilmington. The park is named for the grandfather of Thea Lopez, who runs the Trail Ambassadors program for DelNature.
‘Making Nature real and Relevant’
“The Trail Ambassadors program exposes more BIPOC kids to environmental issues and careers and having a relationship with nature,” says Lopez, the society’s youth development coordinator. “What they struggle with before is making nature real and relevant, and we want kids in this community to understand how it directly affects them.”
The society began the program in 2018, basing it at the DuPont Environmental Education Center, where the Wilmington Riverfront meets the marsh. “I’m glad I got the opportunity. It’s exceeded my expectations,” says Royce Garrison, an 11th grader at William Penn High School who liked Trail Ambassadors so much, he convinced his friend Amari Cradle to join as well. “We advocate green things, simple stuff, like gardening,” he says, also praises the program for developing life skills, like public speaking.
The current cohort of Trail Ambassadors includes a dozen teens in ninth through 11th grades. On Tuesdays in October through May, they focus on “everything environmental,” Lopez says. On Thursdays, they focus on youth development, including lessons on advocacy, public speaking, environmental justice and issues such as redlining. In the summer, they are offered a job where they practice what they learned by engaging the community. And for a week in the summer, they go camping along the Delaware River in the Poconos. Thanks to funding from the William Penn Foundation, they get stipends that change between the school year and the summer.
“This year, our model is using nature to offset some of the violence in our community,” Lopez says. “We’re trying to change the narrative of what parks and recreation really looks like. In the inner city, a lot of times, when you go to a park, it’s just concrete, swings, slides and basketball courts. But if you go to Valley Garden Park in Greenville, you’re able to lie down in the grass and look up at the clouds.”
Accomplishments Throughout
The Ambassadors pass along such narratives in several ways. One way has been to help create a pollinator garden and outdoor classroom at Haynes Park for the students at Harlan Elementary school in northeast Wilmington. “It’s been two years in the making, and it’s been really cool to see the teens taking ownership,” Lopez says, pointing out that it has included a practical lesson in navigating bureaucracy.
They have helped to create another pollinator garden at the DuPont Environmental Education Center and stormwater runoff drains for a new garden at Faith City Church for the Emmanuel Dinning Hall.
One Saturday a month during the school year, they clean up the marsh as part of their DEEC Day of Service. They also clean debris from Southbridge Wetland Park, and they’re often out and about, engaging people about the environment at parks, through other community organizations such as West Side Grows and at events like Open Streets, a series of block parties in Wilmington, when the city closes parts of various streets for community celebrations. Everywhere they go the youth introduce people to their local outdoor opportunities including trails, waterways and environmental centers.
The Ambassadors also develop their leadership skills by helping to evaluate future participants. “Current trail ambassadors conduct the interviews, then we as a group select who we would like to bring on,” Lopez says. That’s all part of the group’s youth-led core. “We call it a democratic workplace, where we vote on everything.”
Prospective ambassadors are nominated by teachers and school counselors and are sought out at events and through social media. In addition to their time and energy, they are also expected to be responsible, dependable, flexible and patient–all admirable traits at school, in the workforce, in the community, and in life–and to be able to ride a bike and paddle a kayak or canoe or be willing to learn.
“These programs are very important because there aren’t a lot of Brown and Black folks in the environmental space,” Lopez says. “We’re trying to create the next generation of caretakers.”
About the Author: Ken Mammarella is a Delaware native and longtime journalist who in his spare time likes to explore the terrain by bike.