Minnesota GreenCorps members serve, learn, and earn towards their education during placements with environmental organizations and agencies across the state.
Minnesota GreenCorps members, a part of AmeriCorps, serve fulltime for 11 months (from mid-September through mid-August) at environmental nonprofits, government agencies, or educational institutions throughout the state. Each member works on one of four focus areas: air pollutant reduction, community readiness, and outreach, green infrastructure improvements, or waste reduction. These projects give members experience and skills in climate leadership.
Members, paired with a mentor who provides support and resources, earn a stipend and an education award after the completion of the term. Over the course of the program's 10-year history, over 350 members have served at 200 different organizations and agencies across the state of Minnesota.
The program places its AmeriCorps members with host organizations around the state to assist communities and local governments in addressing a variety of statewide needs, aiming to:
- Reduce solid waste and increase recycling in Minnesota communities.
- Reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) and other air pollutants.
- Reduce water runoff and improve water quality.
- Assist community members to take eco-friendly actions.
- Increase community resilience and build local capacity to respond to the threats of climate change.
- Train new environmental professionals.
GreenCorps members have worked on a wide variety of environmental service projects. Such efforts have included: assistance with environmental fairs, multi-modal transportation events, energy benchmarking, waste sorts, tree inventory/citizen foresters, invasive species removal, tree planting, and building rain gardens. Many of these projects help to increase the resilience of Minnesota communities to the impacts of climate change, such as increasing heat and heavy precipitation.
More information: Minnesota GreenCorps (MPCA)
