Welcome, 2024 AmeriCorps Team!
Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy is excited to again host four AmeriCorps Project Conserve members for the 2024-25 service year. These talented and energetic service members work throughout Western North Carolina to strengthen our communities and help conserve vital land and water resources. Please join us in welcoming the new team!
Adam Kluge
AmeriCorps Stewardship & Volunteer Member
Adam served as SAHC’s Roan Mountain Naturalist/ATC Ridgerunner during the summer of 2023. He is a recent graduate and student athlete of Warren Wilson College. Adam has considerable field and natural resource experience and is an avid naturalist. This summer he worked with the US Forest Service in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota as a camp and trails seasonal technician. Adam hails from Fairview, NC and is thrilled to be working in his community and with SAHC once again.
Josie Cohen
AmeriCorps Stewardship & Volunteer Member
Josie is a 2022 graduate from Fordham University in New York. Josie was an Environmental Stewardship intern with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources Division of Parks & Recreation. She has experience writing land management plans, managing non-native invasive species and conducting ecological restoration. Her thesis, “The Colonial Legacy of Public Lands: Exploring Extractivism in the Bears Ears Region“, examined the role extractivism and land grabs on public lands play in violating the basic human rights of many Indigenous populations.
Connor Hovendon
AmeriCorps Stewardship & Volunteer Member
Connor just graduated from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME, but he grew up in Hendersonville, NC and volunteered with Asheville Greenworks and Manna FoodBank. He is a former Project Conserve AmeriCorps member at Conserving Carolina, where he completed a summer of service managing trails, performing non-native invasive plant management and participating in river clean-ups. More recently, Connor was a Bowdoin College Summer Fellow at Kennebec Estuary Land Trust in Bath, ME where he performed a variety of GIS, citizen-science and habitat restoration duties.
Alex Russell
AmeriCorps Community Engagement Member
Alexander graduated with a B.S. in Mathematics from Salisbury University in Maryland. A jack of many trades, Alex has held several unique roles throughout his career – some of which include Farm Hand, Carpenter, RiverLink Camp Counselor, Outdoor Instructor and Math Tutor. He is interested in facilitating engaging educational experiences for young people, and has a passion for invasive species management.
AmeriCorps, a federal agency, brings people together to tackle the country’s most pressing challenges, through national service and volunteering. AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers serve with organizations dedicated to the improvement of communities. AmeriCorps helps make service to others a cornerstone of our national culture. Learn more at AmeriCorps.gov.
Project Conserve is administered by Conserving Carolina and funded by an AmeriCorps grant from the North Carolina Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service in the office of Governor Roy Cooper, and the critical support of our host sites and community partners.
