Student Apprenticeships Fall 2024

This fall saw the completion of the second session of our Student Apprenticeship portion of Growing More Than Rain Gardens. USS had 41 students across eight Orange County high schools successfully complete the program, gain valuable stormwater knowledge and work experience. Plus, they each earned a stipend of $220 for their hard work! After six classroom sessions where students learned about rain garden installation and other stormwater control measures, the students participated in three planting days. The work sites were all located in Carrboro, NC.

USS would like to thank all of the participating students, their teachers, homeowners, community volunteers, and the Friends of Bolin Creek for helping make this year’s Fall Apprenticeship program a huge success! And a huge thank you to the sponsors of this program, whose financial support allowed for this program to continue: the Triangle Community Foundation, the Burt’s Bees Foundation, the Town of Carrboro Stormwater, and Orange County government.

For the first day, students visited one of USS’s recent completed projects, the Weaver Community. Students were divided into groups that alternated between three different learning experiences. The first group was taken down to a nearby stream bank. The second observed a cistern and two rain gardens installed on Pleasant Drive. Meanwhile, the third group helped residents of the Weaver Community revitalize two grass swales with new healthy native perennials.

For the second day, students visited another site from the USS portfolio, the Wild Oak Lane Regenerative Stormwater Conveyance (RSC). Here, students spent time increasing the vegetation throughout the rocky ephemeral channel that feeds into Bolin Creek. They also took a walk around the surrounding neighborhood to identify other locations where stormwater control would be beneficial to homeowners and the community at large.

For the final workday, students traveled to a site just off of Amber Court in Carrboro, where multiple swales and an RSC were in the process of being installed to help mitigate runoff feeding directly into Bolin Creek. The workday was hosted by USS and Friends of Bolin Creek. Students, community volunteers, and Town of Carrboro Stormwater staff, worked together to lay down burlap and plant native perennials across 2.9 acres of wooded terrain at the Bolin Creek stream buffer. At the end of the day, students took a post test, and graduated from the Growing More Than Rain Gardens program.