Sloan Canyon Restoration Provides Work, Job Skills for NV Veterans
LAS VEGAS - It is being called a unique partnership - and today on Veterans Day, a restoration project in Sloan Canyon is providing both pay and job skills for local veterans.
Charlotte Overby, restoration program director for the Conservation Lands Foundation, said the foundation has been putting young veterans to work in the Silver State at a time when veterans across the nation need jobs.
"These veterans have been employed for three months to do a lot of trail work that will benefit the residents of Henderson and other people who love Sloan Canyon," she said.
NV Energy provided a $75,000 grant to the Conservation Lands Foundation to support the Veterans Conservation Corps as well as restoration and stewardship on public lands.
Five young veterans have been tending to the trails. and Overby said that hard work will reap future benefits, not only for Sloan Canyon and residents of southern Nevada but also for the veterans themselves.
"This Conservation Corps has been a terrific transitional employment opportunity for them," she said, "and not only are they being paid, and learning job skills, and getting introduced to people who work at the BLM who can provide them additional training - it's just a really great opportunity for them to get a sense of what public-lands management is all about."
This past weekend, veterans teamed up with the BLM to teach volunteers from the support group Friends of Sloan Canyon basic trail construction and maintenance skills.
More information is online at conservationlands.org.
