We simply can’t say enough about the work of Sarah Gossett, a Community Engagement Coordinator who has been working with the WLT for the past year as part of the MassLIFT AmeriCorps program. Every month, Sarah would come to our Board’s Outreach Committee meeting with a notebook full of program and project updates that she had been working on with residents and students in Wareham. I asked her to provide a more detailed write-up of the work she has been doing in Minot Forest.
“During the 2014-2015 service year, as part of a larger effort to get students outdoors during class time, I led several nature walks on the trails in collaboration with the town’s after school CARE programs. Activities performed along the trail included habitat hunts, letterboxing, Meet a Tree, and leaf rubbings. “Storybook Walks” took place in February. Each week, a new story was set up along the trail and families could take self-guided walks to read the stories. 44 people participated in those events. In the spring, I led more students from the CARE program. These students created drawings of their experiences which were then incorporated into interpretive trail signs that will soon be posted in the forest, starting and ending at the elementary school trail head. In addition to these programs, I brought 200 of Wareham’s 4th graders through the trail, where they learned about measuring weather patterns and weather’s effect on local wildlife.”
The interpretive trail signs are perfect and will be installed prior to the new school year in September. The inclusion of student art within the signs helps give students a sense of ownership and pride in the trail system that will hopefully translate to future use and maintenance of the scenic area by them and their families. 
This is only one small piece of what Sarah has done in our town this year. She has also led programs for toddlers and their caregivers at different properties throughout Wareham, worked on the “Blueways” initiative with the Buzzards Bay Coalition, and led adult programs in paddleboarding and quahogging. A new MassLIFT employee will be helping us again for the 2015-2016 year. She will have very big shoes to fill. Sarah should be very proud of all she has accomplished and we wish her well in her future endeavors.
More information on the MassLIFT program can be found here: http://www.mountgrace.org/masslift-americorps
