The next generation of Atlanta’s green workforce

It’s 9:30 on a summer morning near East Atlanta. One student pushes a wheelbarrow across the Oakland Cemetery grass while others break up soil, rakes in hand.

“Of course it’s still a work in progress, but you can see where we’re going, where we’re headed with this,” said Amelia Williams, a rising senior at Arabia Mountain High School in DeKalb County. She smiles and points at a row of potted plants sitting a few feet away. “All those plants you see right there? We just got a fabulous truckload, so we can’t wait to put all that in!”

While other high schoolers are still asleep at this hour, Williams and her fellow Oakland Roots Academy students have already started their workday under the unforgiving July sun, sleeves rolled up and gloves on in the city’s most famous resting place.

The Oakland Roots Academy is an eight-week program training the next generation of Atlanta’s green workforce. The academy focuses its outreach on the MARTA service area: students from the DeKalb, Atlanta, Clayton and Fulton school systems. All participants attend Title I high schools, which are schools that receive federal funding to support low-income students.

First-year students, known as the Green Skills crew, apply for one of two specialized tracks: Horticulture and Historic Preservation. They gain applicable career experience and learn more about Atlanta’s history all while earning an hourly wage.

Horticulture students have taken on a lot-clearing and beautification capstone project, working within the cemetery’s original six acres. The multistep process includes designing the beds, weeding out invasive species and performing a site analysis, considering the area’s topography before installing new plants.

The experience has taught Soledad Frady, a rising junior at Maynard Jackson High School in Atlanta, perseverance. “Out here, it’s really hot. There’s ants, bugs, there’s things that make you uncomfortable and make you not want to keep working, but you have to keep pushing through and really get the job done,” Frady said.

Students on the historical preservation track have also taken on many responsibilities, such as leveling and cleaning headstones, resetting cradle graves and repainting the front gates. The group is now making an ADA-accessible walkway connecting the nursery and greenhouse for their capstone project.

The career goals that attracted them to the preservation track vary, from aspiring to be a history teacher, to an engineer, to an antique restorationist.

Desmond Rose, a rising senior at Elite Scholars Academy in Clayton County, enjoys bricklaying most, and wants to pursue a career in either industrial or civil engineering. “Being hands-on with the construction aspect of this job allows me to really see what that experience is like, and allows me to weigh my options,” Rose said.

Read the rest at ajc.com!