Gold 4 had the opportunity towork with the wonderful people at the Everglades Youth Conservation Camp. The land was beautiful and the work was hard. The importance of our accomplishments will hopefully have a great impact on the future of the Everglades natural habitat.

Janice Kerber was out sponsor during this project. We worked closely with her on a daily basis. Our first day, she gave us an informative orientation on the area we would be working in, the work we would be doing, and the importance it would have in all of southern Florida. Corbet, the 60,000-acre plot of land the camp rested on, was our main focus. Godl4 would be removing exotic plant species - basically hacking down trees with machetes. But not just any trees . . . mainly the Brazilian Peper. That one type of tree was introduced into southern Florida many years ago to try to soak up the water in the Everglades region to help stop flooding. Now the Pepper tree was taking over and drying out the swamp. Major problems arose, such as the destroying of natural habitats, extinction of animal and plant species, and the deterioration of frest water for people. Janice, who lived in Florida her entire life, wanted Godl 4 to help with the restoration of "natural" Florida - trying to keep one of the only areas without the urban sprawl to stay how she has always remembered it.

The members of Gold 4 knew they had their work cut out for them. They knew the work was going ot be hard- keeping motivated in southers Flotida in August heat was going to be a challenge. They were ready for it, though. By knowing how important the work they were doing was to native people like Janice and her family, and reminding each other that they may not see immediate results, but that the long term effects would be more important than they could imagine, Gold 4 worked above and beyond expectation. The appreciation of our hard work that was shown to us by our sponsor and supervisors was a rewarding feeling - the posotive reinforcement that we needed to get the job done!