'We belong out here': Friends of Tryon Creek says goodbye to first cohort of Green Leaders

Friends of Tryon Creek’s first cohort of Green Leaders, the nonprofit’s new workforce development program, received a flurry of goodbyes on their last day.

First, it was Executive Director Gabe Sheoships, who had gift bags to hand out before he went on a walk with his family. Then, it was Education Programs Manager Jonathan Hayden, looking for a group photo after a few wise words.

For the past four months, the Green Leaders learned from and supported the staff of Friends of Tryon Creek as part of a fully paid internship program developed to support early career professionals interested in the environmental field.

Lili Yazzie, FOTC’s workforce development coordinator, created the program with the organization’s value of reciprocity at its core.

“I know a lot of people that majored in environmental science and I only know one environmental scientist; most people don’t usually follow the most linear path to get to careers in the environmental field. So a big focus of the program is spending time with environmental professionals and learning about what they do and how they got there,” said Yazzie. “I worry about people entering the environmental field and feeling like they’ve chosen the wrong path or that there’s only one specific way to get to those careers.”

The Green Leaders program includes three components: learning about FOTC and environmental nonprofit organizations, supporting the restoration and education teams and gaining mentorship and career guidance.

“This program is rooted in a lot of personal experience,” said Yazzie. “In internships, my work didn’t feel valued. I found early in my career that internships often didn’t pay enough to actually sustain people. I saw a lot of existing inequities and disparities that were exacerbated when people weren’t able to sustain themselves through an internship. Early career opportunities were not accessible and caused a lot of people to pivot to other careers instead. I wanted interns to feel like their labor was valued here.”

Funded by the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund, FOTC’s Green Leaders program worked to not only show the interns the breadth of career possibilities in the environmental field, but also provide them with a role where they could learn about the pathways that interested them and feel a sense of responsibility and community.

“Something that crossed my mind throughout this program is having a sense of place. I really like the amount of time we spent learning all the plants that grow here,” said Zoe Wright, one of the Green Leaders. “I think once you get to know the plants you definitely feel more of a connection to the area and I think that that was really special.”

With that “sense of place” comes humanity’s role in conservation and restoration, something that the Green Leaders came to appreciate the more time they spent in Tryon Creek. The group worked to restore creek beds and conducted guiding tours of first and second graders along the park’s many trails.

“We belong out here,” said Jakob Foley, another Green Leader. “The time I’ve spent in the forest, I’ve always been taught to leave no trace; it leaves you with a sense that you’re destructive and to be really careful where you tread because we don’t belong out here. This is where the animals and plants live; it’s not the human world, but, through this program, I’ve been able to shed that and start to see that we really have a place out here in a role of continuous tending of the land.”

Due to their close relationship with the restoration and education teams, the Green Leaders felt they’d learned something from everyone they worked with at Tryon Creek.

Green Leader Seth Medley said the experience showed him how Tryon works to “reach out to the communities that are normally excluded from state parks.

“We’re the first cohort and I feel like there’s a a lot of camaraderie with everybody here. I’m going to miss that when it’s done. I looked forward to coming into work because every day they would make me laugh and it was something,” Medley said.

Currently, the next cohort of Friends of Tryon Creek Green Leaders is planned for fall 2024.

“It definitely feels like you’re being respected because if you’re just doing it for free, or for an extremely low amount of money. It feels like you’re being taken advantage of and it’s just something that you’re gonna have to suck up until you get a good opportunity,” said Joy Lopes, a Green Leader. “It’s probably one of the first of its kind in Portland and I’m very thankful for this.”