Thank you all for an insightful and inspiring discussion.
We are here tonight to honor a select group of young Missourians. Men and women who stepped forward this summer to take a challenge:
A challenge to serve;
A challenge to lead;
A challenge to make Missouri a better state – a more beautiful state – for generations to come.
To appreciate the full significance of our State Parks Youth Corps, we need to turn back the pages of history – to a time when another group of young people endured heat and cold and sacrificed blood and sweat to enhance the natural beauty of our nation.
Those young people belonged to the Civilian Conservation Corps.
The year was 1933. For four years, our country had been ensnared in unimaginable economic turmoil. One-in-four Americans was out of work. Hunger and homelessness swept the nation. For millions, the future offered little hope.
Meanwhile, unchecked industrial expansion had scarred the face of America. Factories blackened America’s cities under permanent shrouds of soot and ash. And problems like erosion and deforestation were stretching the limits of our natural resources.
America needed a change. Leading naturalists, including the famous John Muir, championed the idea of preserving public lands for the public good. And because of their efforts, a new system of national and state parks was beginning to take root.
And then came a landmark announcement from a new president: America was forming the Civilian Conservation Corps, the CCC.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt knew that America’s woodlands and waterways were a priceless treasure – one to be safeguarded for posterity. Roosevelt also knew that he needed to put people – lots of people – back to work.
Those new parks would be the perfect place to do just that.
Roosevelt’s vision was clear. Putting young people to work in the parks would pay dividends for both the present and future generations. In the short term, young people would earn a fair day’s pay for a hard day’s work. They’d share that money with their families. And that spending would help jumpstart the stagnant economy.
Over the long term, hundreds of thousands of young workers would help erase the scars of industrialization, by building trails, constructing shelters, preventing fires and planting trees in every corner of America.
Most importantly, those young folks would benefit from what Roosevelt called the moral and spiritual value of work. After a long day, they’d sit down by a fire; reflect on their struggles; and know that by sheer will, grit and determination, they were building the future.
President Roosevelt understood the truth you and I both know: There are some lessons only nature can teach – about life, about self-reliance, about our place in the world.
That’s one of the reasons the First Lady is chairing our Children in Nature Challenge – a community initiative to get kids across Missouri reconnected with the outdoors.
Together, the young people of the CCC rebuilt America’s natural landscapes, and America’s economy, with their heads, their hearts and their hands.
At the same time, working in the parks rebuilt the members of the CCC … by giving them a sense of purpose; a sense of mission; a sense of pride.
At the height of its nine-year history, more than 600,000 Americans were enlisted in the CCC – with thousands stationed here in Missouri. Their legacy lives on today.
In the trails they cleared and the forests they planted; and in the 247 buildings and 95 structures they erected in our state parks.
We also see that legacy in the more than 1,000 young people who labored and toiled and earned a living as part of the State Parks Youth Corps this summer.
The young workers of the State Parks Youth Corps stand on the shoulders of their forbearers in the CCC.
As the National Association of State Parks Directors noted when they honored Missouri with their president’s award this year, the State Parks Youth Corps was the greatest influx of labor and energy and determination into our parks since the 1930’s.
And, as we heard tonight, their accomplishments were truly im