Each March, the D.C. Everest School District of Marathon County invites approximately 500 fourth graders from six elementary schools to visit the Twin Oaks Environmental Center just east of Wausau to learn about making maple syrup and candy from sap. From October through December 1999, WCC crews from the City of Tigerton, Portage County and the U.S. Forest Service in Medford built the center a new 16 x 32 sugarhouse that included a room for boiling sap and another for finishing syrup and other products. Crews work with communities across the state to complete parks projects, construct affordable housing and install erosion controls. On any given day you can see corps members building park shelters, concession stands, skiing and hiking trails and shelters, boardwalks, bridges, ballparks, dugouts and bleachers. Counties and cities employ WCC crews to fence streambanks, build retaining walls, create grass waterways and water diversions, build and install sediment barriers and riprap banks to stem erosion.
Many crews build new, but some find their job is to save the old.
Restoring memories and old fishing boats in Cornucopia. The three old boats, each one about 40 feet long, rest on a Lake Superior beach just outside Cornucopia. The Bayfield County crew first replaced some of the old broken and rotten trusses and ribs inside the hull of the Twin Sisters . They then stripped off the old roof and added a layer of -inch plywood, roofing paper and tar. Besides learning some new skills, corps members working on the old fishing boats gained a real appreciation for the historical significance of the boats, the commercial fishing tradition of Lake Superior and the people who made a life fishing the waters near Cornucopia.