Gatlinburg, TN – November 18, 2024 | In collaboration with Friends of the Smokies, the National Park Service (NPS) has a completed a three-year restoration of the Ramsey Cascades Trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Located in the Greenbrier area, this popular trail ascends through beautiful hardwood forests to the 105-foot Ramsey Cascades, the tallest waterfall in the park. The trail is now open seven days a week following an extensive reconstruction and rehabilitation.

March 8th, 2022 | Chattanooga, TN — Press Release: Aaron Conner, a member of Southeast Conservation Corps’ Veterans Fire Corps crew, will be recognized by The Corps Network, the National Association of Service and Conservation Corps, as a 2022 Corpsmember of the Year.

January 3rd, 2022 | There are two dangers inherent in trimming brush, and at the moment I am confronting both of them. The first is physical fatigue, the strains and overuse injuries stemming from bending too much from the back, from swinging too much with the wrist. The second is tedium, a side effect of bending and sweeping for hours in silence with little more than a stiff breeze and the chance of autumn rain for company. The first I mitigate by bending from the knees, using my core, drinking water. For the second, I attempt to create meaning out of monotony. I reach out with the loppers, clip a beech limb, bend to collect it from the ground, toss it into the undergrowth. Reach, clip, bend, toss. The motions build upon each other like waves, or maybe better, like tree rings, or the seasons that etch them into the cross section of each young tree I cut.

November 26th, 2021 | Through partnership with the Southeast Conservation Corps, the Daniel Boone National Forest was privileged to host a 14 member all-female trail crew earlier this fall. The crew spent eight weeks rebuilding campsites, constructing a quarter mile of trail and completing other necessary maintenance work on the Forest’s popular Bee Rock Campground on the London Ranger District. Their work was instrumental in restoring the severely flood-damaged campground.

February 19th, 2021 | Located in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park is a place full of history—but also a place of unique community. Often referred to as “the Chickamauga Battlefield” or “Chick-Chatt,” the park is the preserved site of two major Civil War battles in the South. While tourists come for the history tour, locals come for the hiking, walking, running, and equestrian trails. Members of the community use the park to exercise, meet their friends, and fulfill their daily ritual of commuting to their beloved park.

August 29, 2020 | Brenna Kelly didn't grow up hiking or camping and hardly considered herself an outdoorsy person. Yet after she graduated from college in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2002 and was looking for her next adventure, she settled on the idea of doing something that involved the outdoors. Read more about SECC!

August 9, 2020 | Southeast Conservation Corps Women's Crew builds a footbridge across a stream in the McDonald Field, just south of the Chickamauga National Military Park's visitor center. Check out these photos!

November 1, 2019 | Our very own Brenna Kelly, Corps Director of Southeast Conservation Corps, is featured in the Get Out features of the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Within the past three issues of Get Out, we have featured a different conservation group's newly hired executive director — and all have been women. That got us wondering, are women leading the local conservation scene? Based on our tally — yes.

September 11, 2019 | The story behind how four high schoolers formed a first-ever work crew comprised entirely of women to tackle backlogged projects in Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park this summer.

August 27, 2019 | As the National Park Service celebrates 103 years of preserving America’s natural and cultural resources, the National Park Foundation Monday announced a more than $3.5 million investment in expanding young, diverse leaders’ capacity to help protect national parks, lift up communities, and gain in-demand job skills training through service corps programs.

Service corps are locally-based organizations that engage young adults and veterans in projects that address recreation, conservation, disaster response, and community needs.