CALUMET – Bill Watson, director of the SEEDS Ecology + Education + Design program, is happy with the partnership between his organization and BHK Child Development. The students involved in the program are from the Horizons Alternative High School in the public schools of Calumet, Laurium and Keweenaw.

“I’m hearing really, really great things about that group of three young people and how well that seems to be going, so we’ll try continue the partnership with BHK,” he said.

SEEDS provides after school programming at select schools in northwest Michigan, supported in part by Michigan Department of Education 21st Century Community Learning Centers grants. SEEDS provides learning opportunities and access to healthy role models, mentors and community advisors.

Watson said SEEDs is unique in conservation corps circles because they hire young people from the local communities with which they partner.

“I don’t bring in impoverished youth from Traverse City to work; we’re hiring from your community. This summer, there are 13 people with jobs that might or might not otherwise have them and our goal is to expand that; to have more young people with opportunity and training,” Watson said.

In addition to partnering with BHK this summer, Watson said SEEDS is also partnered with the Keweenaw National Historical Park.

There are two crews working with park service staff, Watson said. There are three young people working on a historic preservation project. They are working with masons tuck-pointing a number of buildings, and restoring the park headquarters building.

“And there’s another crew that is called the Centennial Crew, and that crew is part of the National Park Service Centennial this year. Funding for that project comes from the National Park Service and also from various friends groups in the Keweenaw Peninsula,” Watson said.

Watson said the Youth Conservation Corps crews are also working on other projects, including the Quincy Mine.

“They’re doing everything from restoration work on the buildings to landscaping to cleaning up to restoring artifacts to cataloging historic artifacts, so there’s a bunch of different projects that they’re doing.”