A four-person Youth Conservation Corps crew spent the Nevada summer repairing trails, gathering native seeds and learning field skills alongside refuge staff at Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge.

Some summer jobs end with a paycheck. At Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada, four teenagers finished their season with something extra: trails ready for the next visitor, native seeds ready for future work, and field lessons they can carry into whatever comes next.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Aug. 31 account of the 2026 Youth Conservation Corps crew describes a summer of practical stewardship. The teens maintained trails, planted native seeds, collected seeds for processing and learned how to band waterfowl in the Ruby Mountains. It is a cheerful stop on the Smile Across America map—a place where young people and experienced caretakers made a public landscape stronger together.

Four teens, many ways to help

The crew’s assignments moved across the refuge system. At Stillwater, they worked on maintenance and learned about the plants, animals and insects that make the local refuges their home. In the Ruby Mountains, refuge biologist Daniel Dewey taught them about waterfowl banding.

They also repaired the Cave Creek Trail and visited Fort Ruby to help with cleanup at the historic site. The variety matters: conservation can mean a careful observation, a restored path, a handful of seeds or an hour spent caring for a place with a long human story.

A mentor who keeps showing up

Leading the group was crew leader Keith Sluyter, who returned for his 17th season. The Service says he guided the teenagers through refuge maintenance, local biology and the many details that turn an outdoor assignment into a real education.

Nevada’s summer heat made the work demanding, and the crew prioritized safety in the desert conditions. A short break at Ruby Lake National Wildlife Refuge offered more tolerable temperatures and another chance to learn alongside staff. The rhythm—work, instruction, care and regrouping—is the kind of support that lets a first job become a foundation.

Public lands, personal futures

Youth Conservation Corps positions employ teenagers ages 15 to 18 as summer workers at national wildlife refuges, national parks and national forests. Participants learn public-lands stewardship and conservation while doing useful work in the places they help care for.

Stillwater’s four-person crew leaves behind more than repaired paths and collected seeds. They leave a model for a good summer: show up, learn from someone who knows the place, take care of the details and make room for the next person. That is how a refuge becomes a classroom—and how a community’s future gets a little greener.

Source note: Crew size, assignments, mentor names and program details are from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service story “Youth Power at Stillwater NWR,” published Aug. 31, 2026. All images are original editorial illustrations.

At the end of another busy summer, Yosemite National Park is making room for one of its most hands-on traditions: the Yosemite Facelift. The annual cleanup, organized in partnership with the Yosemite Climbing Association, is scheduled for Sept. 23–27, 2026, as part of National Public Lands Day season.

The event is a simple invitation with a visible result. Volunteers spend time caring for the park, and the work is shared across the public lands that visitors come to enjoy. The National Park Service says the Facelift has drawn more than 1,500 volunteers in some recent years. In 2025, more than 1,400 volunteers contributed over 13,000 hours and removed 15,290 pounds of debris from Yosemite, according to the park’s volunteer information.

A tradition built around showing up

Yosemite’s current listing describes the Facelift as a five-day event and points visitors to the Yosemite Climbing Association for the full schedule. The park’s drop-in volunteer guidance says people can join special events without an application. That makes the tradition approachable for a visitor who wants to add a useful hour or day to a park trip.

Participants should plan for outdoor work: the park asks volunteers to wear long pants and closed-toe shoes suited to the weather, and to bring sun protection, water, and snacks. Yosemite provides tools and protective equipment. Everyone signs a volunteer agreement, and a guardian must sign for anyone under 18.

Small work, shared ownership

National Public Lands Day, observed this year on Sept. 26, is billed by the NPS as the nation’s largest single-day volunteer effort for public lands. The agency says the day is designed to connect communities around caring for parks, rivers, refuges, and other shared spaces. Yosemite Facelift gives that broad idea a local rhythm: meet other people, learn the practical work, and leave a favorite landscape better cared for.

For people planning a fall visit, the NPS recommends checking Yosemite’s current event information and conditions before arriving. Visitors who cannot make the September dates can still follow the same spirit close to home by joining a local public-land or neighborhood stewardship project.

Smile Across America · Concord, Massachusetts

A Turtle Family’s Bright New Chapter Began in a Massachusetts Wetland

Two young Blanding’s turtles released at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge are the first documented offspring of a turtle that once received the same community-supported head start.

Some good news arrives in a very small package. In late June, two nine-month-old Blanding’s turtles made their way toward a wetland at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Concord, Massachusetts, while about 40 people gathered to see them off.

The release, reported by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on July 7, marked a milestone two decades in the making: the turtles were the first documented offspring at the refuge of a turtle that had itself gone through the conservation program known as “headstarting.”

Meet Ivy, the turtle who came back into view

The family story begins in 2010, when a female Blanding’s turtle left the refuge’s marsh and traveled more than a mile to nest at a nearby office park. Her nest produced 11 hatchlings. One of them, a small female nicknamed Ivy, spent her first winter at Stone Zoo through Zoo New England’s Headstart Program.

Ivy and her siblings returned to Great Meadows the next spring, each with a small shell notch so researchers could recognize them later. Ivy then disappeared from view for about a decade. Zoo New England field technicians found her during a routine survey in 2023 and fitted her with a radio transmitter.

In spring 2025, senior field conservationist Jimmy Welch followed Ivy’s signal as she left the refuge to look for a nesting site. She chose adjacent conservation land owned by the Town of Concord, and Welch marked and protected the nest. It produced seven healthy hatchlings—the first documented young from a headstarted turtle at the refuge.

A head start, shared by a whole community

Blanding’s turtle hatchlings are roughly the size and weight of a quarter when they first emerge. The headstarting program gives some of them indoor care through their most vulnerable first winter. By release time, the turtles are much larger: the two young turtles released in June each weighed about one-third of a pound.

Since the program began in 2003, more than 800 headstarted Blanding’s turtles have been released at Great Meadows and surrounding wetlands, according to the Fish & Wildlife Service. Zoo New England says its partners work with about 40 Massachusetts schools each year, giving students a hands-on role in raising hatchlings for nine months before they return to native habitat.

That means the audience at this summer’s release included much more than wildlife professionals. Representatives of Zoo New England, the Town of Concord, Concord Land Conservation Trust, and the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game joined field technicians, animal-care specialists, volunteers, interns, retired teachers, and nearby residents.

Dr. Bryan Windmiller, who founded Zoo New England’s Blanding’s turtle conservation program at Great Meadows and led it until his retirement this year, was there too. The Fish & Wildlife Service described the moment as a chance for him to see the program’s second generation begin its own life in the wild.

The long view

Blanding’s turtles can live 80 years or longer in a protected landscape. That gives this release a wonderfully patient kind of hope: the people who helped Ivy’s children today may never see the whole story, but their work has put another generation on the map.

“We think they can smell the swamp,” senior Stone Zoo zookeeper Deborah Jon Toupouzis said as the young turtles waited in their holding tank, according to the Fish & Wildlife Service.

After the remarks, Welch, Windmiller, and senior field conservationist John Berkholtz waded to the wetland’s edge and released the turtles. They swam away as the sun began to set.

The lesson is quietly practical: habitat, careful monitoring, schools, volunteers, and neighbors can add up to something that lasts. In Concord, a turtle that once vanished into the reeds returned with a family—and a community ready to welcome the next generation home.

Sources: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, “Partners release second generation of ‘headstarted’ turtles at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge”; Zoo New England, “Blanding’s Turtle Conservation”; Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, “Historic win for Blanding’s turtles”.

A spring gathering at Utah’s Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge paired a 250th-anniversary flag ceremony with new ways for families to enjoy the wetlands.

Sometimes a good day outdoors comes with a little ceremony. At Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge in northern Utah, about 500 people gathered April 4 for the “Wild Wonders” celebration, welcoming a set of commemorative flags traveling through the country for America’s 250th anniversary.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Aug. 24 account describes a day built around neighbors, birds and a place that belongs to everyone who cares for it. The celebration included a special flag ceremony and marked the opening of a temporary 12-mile auto-tour route, giving visitors access to parts of the refuge while the permanent route receives repairs.

A refuge made for a shared day

The April report says families and visitors of all ages tried junior-ranger activities, crafts, seed planting and scavenger hunts. Renovated patio space now includes binocular viewers and planter boxes, while an interactive garden in the Outdoor Nature Explore Classroom gives visitors another hands-on way to spend time outside.

Bear River is a particularly lively setting for that kind of gathering. The refuge protects nearly 80,000 acres of marsh, open water, uplands and alkali mudflats, and millions of birds use the area during migration. The refuge’s auto-tour route lets people watch wildlife from their cars, with pullouts for a closer look at the landscape.

Where history and habitat meet

The refuge’s story is also a community story. The Fish & Wildlife Service reports that local individuals and organizations urged Congress to protect the Bear River delta after wetlands were disappearing in the 1920s. Congress established the refuge in 1928, creating a lasting sanctuary for migratory waterfowl.

Today, visitors can walk an accessible trail near the James V. Hansen Wildlife Education Center, look for birds from the patio or follow the temporary route through mid-September 2026. The service says American avocets and other shorebirds can be seen along the route, alongside the refuge’s wide-open views and seasonal wildlife.

That makes the flags’ stop at Bear River feel fitting: a celebration of a national milestone held in a place shaped by local care. The day’s simple invitation is still available—bring a little time, look closely, and let a shared landscape do some of the smiling.

Reporting note: This article is based on U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service reporting. The accompanying images are original editorial illustrations created for this article.