01 WELCOME
The Ojai Valley’s conservation
corps since 1991.
From kindergarten to careers: free environmental education for students, conservation training and paid work for teens and young adults, and professional wildfire protection for the Ojai Valley region.
In partnership
U.S. Forest Service
Channel Islands National Park
CAL FIRE
California State Coastal Conservancy
California Department of Fish and Wildlife
County of Ventura
City of Ojai
Ojai Valley Land Conservancy
02 ABOUT C.R.E.W.
Our first line of defense.
A nonprofit run from Ojai by a small office, watershed educators, restoration program staff, field supervisors, and their corps crews.
The students, teens, and young adults they teach, mentor, and employ come from across Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
Three programs, one organization.
Field Corps crews clear brush, build defensible space, and maintain backcountry trails.
Once Upon a Watershed takes school classes into the field to study the watershed they live in.
The Green Valley Project has teens plan, carry out, and present their own restoration projects.
Land across the Ojai Valley region and the Los Padres National Forest.
The Ventura River from Matilija Dam to the estuary, and the Santa Clara River near Oxnard.
Youth Councils in Ojai, Ventura, Oxnard, and Thousand Oaks, and restoration work as far out as the Channel Islands.
Sign up to volunteer when the youth programs need adult help.
Join a crew and get paid while you learn the trade.
Partner with us on a restoration project or a grant.
Designate a gift to one program and that program gets all of it.
03 OUR IMPACT
04 OUR PEOPLE
The next generation makes it possible.
Many C.R.E.W. members grow up in the Ojai Valley region, and the programs are built so one person can move through all three.
The 4th grader planting acorns at the Ojai Meadows Preserve with Once Upon a Watershed can become the teen on a Green Valley Project Youth Council presenting a project to the City Council, and then the Field Corps member on the East End clearing a senior's property with chainsaws and a chipper, free of charge.
Alumni have gone on to wildland fire and conservation careers.
05 YOUR ROLE
A lifetime of stewardship can start now.
As a young student, Once Upon a Watershed gives your class a field day on the river. At 13 you can join a Green Valley Project Youth Council. At 14 you can apply to the Field Corps, where training is paid from the first day.
Teachers, parents, and volunteers have their own way in, too.
06 SUPPORT C.R.E.W.
Your gift becomes a paycheck, an enriching field day, or a stand of oaks.
A gift to the Field Corps pays wages, chainsaw and first aid certifications, gear, insurance, and the rest of what keeps a crew in the field.
A gift to Once Upon a Watershed keeps the lessons free, field days included.
A gift to the Green Valley Project pays for the plants, tools, and staff its Youth Councils need.
Give to one program, to all three, or to C.R.E.W. as a whole.
07 READING LIST
What we're reading.
Articles, research, and reporting we think are worth your time.
CrewCuts
