
In 2024, The Corps Network partnered with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), AmeriCorps, and the National Association of Conservation Districts to implement the Working Lands Conservation Corps (WLCC). Funding from PACT supported The Corps Network’s ability to provide subgrants to organizations to host WLCC members across the country. The WLCC members provided outreach and education around agriculture assistance to farmers, ranchers, and communities. The WLCC ended in 2025. Read a statement from a WLCC member.
This personal statement was written by Rachel Post
My name is Rachel Post, I am Working Lands District Conservation Technician. I’m currently working with the NRCS and the Teller Park Conservation District in Woodland Park, CO. I joined WLCC because I’ve always believed that service brings about benefits in many ways. Volunteering isn’t just about what it does for the community, it’s about what it does for you as well. At its core, service isn’t about boosting a LinkedIn profile; it’s about taking the energy you have and channeling it into something bigger than yourself. It’s about engaging with the community and learning from people who think and live differently than you do. In the giving of time to the community it may be easy to see how one is giving, but in reality, I am receiving far more in terms of lived experience that is hard to quantify and real development in the inner working of my personhood.
For some time, meaningful work wasn’t always within reach. In college and right after, I worked a variety of jobs—from stocking shelves at Walmart to delivering sandwiches. But it was Wyoming, with its vast, desolate landscape and close-knit rural communities, that truly shaped me. I graduated from college there and developed a deep connection to the land and the people, many of whom are working hard to make ends meet in some of the most impoverished areas of the country. It was there that I developed a passion for place-based education and caring about food justice and agriculture and greater food sustainability. If sustainability is not sustainable for all then it is not sustainable.
Over the years, I’ve worked on farms during the summers, been involved in agricultural research focused on indoor vertical growing and worked on small-scale production farms. This opportunity to work with the Natural Resource and Conservation Services under the Department of Agriculture is amazing. It combines conservation practices with local producers and landowners, and I get to be right there learning it all. I could not be more grateful and awed at this dream opportunity. It is not always the easiest task to be young and in the environmental sector. This program has given me such hope for a promising future if I keep learning and working hard. Thank you!