Corps Program

Puget Sound is our classroom and our legacy.

EarthCorps is located in the heart of the Pacific Northwest: Seattle, Washington. Here, we watch the sun rise over the Cascade Mountains in the east, and then set behind the Olympic Mountains to the west. Everything that we do affects the health of Puget Sound – the large body of saltwater that sustains our region.

EarthCorps has three Corps Programs: EarthCorps Crew, EarthCorps Volunteer, and EarthCorps Specialist.

EarthCorps Crew is our primary conservation corps program where AmeriCorps and International Participants learn leadership skills through working collaboratively and executing technical restoration projects along shorelines, trails, and in forests. They choose to build an intentional community where they exchange ideas, learn, and grow from one another. Every day our corps is hard at work, improving the health of the Puget Sound region.

After the rigorous program, EarthCorps alumni go on to do big things. They are running a conservation corps in Japan, promoting sustainable farming in Guatemala, building green roofs in New York City, working for US legislators, advancing equity and inclusion in the City of Seattle, and much, much more.

Restoration is physically and mentally demanding work.

As an EarthCorps crew member, you will learn and bond with your crew through challenging projects that will give you an introduction to a wide variety of restoration methods. These projects are located throughout the Puget Sound region in urban, suburban, and rural settings. For examples of our field projects, click here.

Projects include, but are not limited to:

• Invasive plant control – both manually and with herbicide application
• Native plant installation
• Trail construction
• Stream and salmon habitat restoration
• Slope stabilization and erosion control

Plants aren’t the only things that grow at EarthCorps.

What takes EarthCorps’ conservation corps program to the next level is the time devoted to professional and personal growth. Our leadership curriculum is based on The Leadership Challenge developed by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner. Throughout the year, corps members participate in workshops and trainings that provide deeper context for the field work as well as help participants explore their different leadership skills.

“Leaders inspire the group toward common goals, model integrity, communication and commitment”

Workshop and training topics include:

• Basic Pacific Northwest botany and ecology
• Environmental restoration theories and concepts
• Natural resource management
• Interpersonal and cross-cultural communication
• Non profit management and networking

EarthCorps’ Leadership Philosophy:

Everyone can grow to be an effective leader. Leaders inspire the group toward common goals, model integrity, communication and commitment, recognize and bring out the richness in all people, empower leadership in others, motivate through appreciation, mature and grow through practice. Truly effective leaders lead by example.