John Muir National Historical Site

After the Peace Corps, I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. The John Muir National Historical Site was the home of one of the greatest conservationists of the United States. It was in his old Victorian mansion that John Muir penned the words that later made national parks out of Yosemite, Mount Rainier, Grand Canyon, Sequoia and established the basis for the National Park Service. In addition to flexing my public speaking muscles on a daily basis, I helped turned a small, nine-acre piece of land into a community center. With the help from a local high school, we turned the park into an outdoor classroom, giving alternative students a chance to learn without the confines of desks and walls. I established an internship program with another high school for at-risk teens to teach elementary school students about conservation. I doubled the size of our volunteer program and brought locals into the park for our family programs.