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.

APPLY TO C.R.E.W. FIELD CORPS

HIRE C.R.E.W. FIELD CORPS

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

Since 1991, C.R.E.W. has paired work the land needs with opportunities young people need.

We’re an Ojai nonprofit bringing together paid conservation crews, youth-led environmental projects, and free watershed education for local schools.

Our story

We work from the Los Padres National Forest to the Channel Islands, across the Ventura River and Santa Clara River watersheds.

Crews restore Middle Stewart Canyon Creek in Ojai, students plant along West Campus Creek and study the Ventura River from Matilija Dam to the estuary, and Youth Councils meet in Ojai, Ventura, Oxnard, and Thousand Oaks.

See the places

Sign up to volunteer when the youth programs need adult help. Hire the Field Corps. Give to support paid conservation work, youth leadership, and free watershed education.

Young people can join a Youth Council or apply for paid fieldwork, and teachers can book Once Upon a Watershed lessons for their classes.

Find your way in

03 OUR IMPACT

The corps

2,000+

Young people hired

Paid conservation work, ages 14 to 25. That’s about the number of students in the Ojai Unified School District.

Restoration

4,000+

Native plants grown and planted

By Green Valley Project youth since 2020. That’s more than one plant a day, on average.

Watershed education

1,349

Students in one year

Once Upon a Watershed in 2022, with 49 teachers at 15 schools. That’s about 90 students at each school.

Wildfire safety

22,000

Acres impacted by fire prevention projects

23 projects, 2020 to 2024. That’s more than seven times the area of the City of Ojai. The square shows the two to scale.

To scale

The square represents the total area those projects impacted, drawn as one shape for comparison. The green shape is the City of Ojai at the same scale.

Drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau boundary of the city, 2020 Census.

Area impacted, to scale22,000 acres, 5.9 miles on a side

City of Ojai4.36 square miles

1 mile

N

See the methodology

04 OUR PEOPLE

The next generation makes it possible

Group of children gathered around a garden bed examining soil and compost, some using tools, outdoors on a sunny day.

Tour group listening to guide near a dam and waterfall, surrounded by mountains and desert vegetation.

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.

WE ARE C.R.E.W.

A group of children sitting outdoors in a forested area, listening to a woman standing and talking to them during a field trip or outdoor class.

Two boys kayaking on a lake with trees and a shoreline in the background under a clear blue sky.

Five workers in helmets and work clothes pull a large branch or tree trunk on a sloped terrain using a rope, with trees and a clear blue sky in the background.

05‍ ‍YOUR ROLE

A group of people dressed in hiking gear standing on a trail in a mountainous area with large rocks, trees, and distant mountain ranges under a clear blue sky.

Four young women standing outdoors on a sunny day, smiling at the camera, with trees and grassy area in the background.

Children and adults collecting shells and exploring the wet sand at the beach with buckets and shovels in a group, near the shoreline with the ocean in the background.

A lifetime of stewardship can start now

Once Upon a Watershed can give your 4th grade class its first of many field trips to your local ‘shed. Then, at 13 you can join a Green Valley Project Youth Council. By 14 you can apply to work in the Field Corps, where you’re paid from the first day of training.

Teachers, parents, and volunteers have their own way in, too.