Programs designed to give White Pass and Morton High School students valuable and rarified work experience in the forests close to their hometowns received an influx of funding this week from the Pacific Mountain Workforce Development Council.
Both current and former White Pass High School principals Chris Schumaker and Lewis County Commissioner Gary Stamper spoke about the value of White Pass’s Discovery Team during a meeting Monday.
“As you know East Lewis County is very rural, economically depressed and there’s not a lot of jobs for our kids,” Schumaker said. “With this generous contribution and support from everybody we’ll be able to offer 28 positions in our community for kids to go out and work for the Forest Service and gain valuable job skills.”
On Monday, Pacific Mountain presented two $5,000 High Impact Community Grants to the White Pass School District’s Discovery Team Program and the Pinchot Partners at the Board of Lewis County Commissioners meeting. Both grants will benefit the school’s program, recipients said Monday.
Pacific Mountain operates in Grays Harbor, Lewis, Mason, Pacific and Thurston counties and oversees WorkSource centers in the region.
“The High Impact Community Grant is something that is designed for very rural communities,” said Stacey Anderson, of Pacific Mountain. “We’re excited to present a few checks today.”
Schumaker and Discovery Team coordinator Debbie Layman accepted the first grant, which will allow the program to employ four teams of seven students each between 15 and 19 years old for five weeks over the summer with the help of the U.S. Forest Service.
In addition to work experience, students learn how to apply and interview for a job and get feedback from staff.
“The great thing about this program is there are some kids that just don’t do great in a classroom, but here’s an opportunity for kids to really shine, and we’ve seen this over and over,” Layman said. “We have such a mixture of kids that gives them the opportunity to work with some of our kids that are A students and are F students.”
Students start at 7:30 a.m. and work until 3:30 p.m. every day on job sites supervised by the Forest Service.
“They end up working a whole lot of hours,” Layman said.
Stamper noted Pacific Mountain’s grant to the Discovery Team last year was $2,500.
“Not to be greedy or anything but I think we need to push more money through Pacific Mountain into those rural areas, not just White Pass and Morton, but in all areas,” he said.
Matt Comisky, board member of the Pinchot Partners, accepted the second $5,000 check, which he said will also benefit the Discovery Team by allowing five of the students to continue work with the Forest Service for another week to monitor the Pinchot Partners’ huckleberry restoration efforts in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. He and Stamper noted the work could get students interested in pursuing a scientific career.
“We would love to see some kids from White Pass become an engineer and come work for Lewis County with public works and environment sciences and forestry and all the other jobs that are available out there,” Stamper said. “And they’re there, and the kids are there, we just need to give them a little more opportunity.”
