My name is Lauren Jensen and I'm currently a MN GreenCorps member, serving with Winona
County's Planning and Environmental Services Department.
Lauren Jensen is one of dozens of young people who are making an environmental impact on
communities through Minnesota GreenCorps.
The program is made possible in part by our state tax dollars.
Minnesota GreenCorps is a program where we take individuals and place them in communities
to help protect the environment and also provide an opportunity for the individuals to become
our next leaders in our environmental areas our next professionals doing environmental
work.
Lauren is making waves in Winona County.
So today we're starting out with a rain garden maintenance workshop.
When she's not in the office, her hands are in the dirt.
We have some volunteers coming in to help clean up a rain garden in town at Bluff Country
Co-Op.
And her head is flooded with ideas to make the environment better for the county.
They put in the rain garden a year or two ago to really help mitigate the flooding that
was happening in their parking lot.
And so we're going to be weeding it out, clearing dirt out of its inlets so that water
can flow in there better.
None of this is really possible without grant funding and in particular the GreenCorps program.
Weʼre very cognizant though that its an honor to receive a competitive grant like GreenCorps
or any other grant we receive with state dollars and we want to be good stewards of the funding
to make sure itʼs used efficiently.
GreenCorps members are heavily vetted through the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
This works is really important to the pollution control agency because it makes a connection
of the work that we do with the community.
a lot of the work we need to have done requires people to change their behavior and communities
are the place that we can start.
Lauren's focus is on stormwater management, education, and outreach.
We're also going to be stenciling some storm drains.
So when they see that there, they can be more conscious of you know, is there oil leaking
out of my car that's flowing down this drain? or sweeping up their grass from their street
after they've mowed their lawn.
Because it all ends up in lakes, rivers, and streams.
We live in the land of 10,000 lakes and we like to be outside, we like to recreate
on that water and so it's important to me that people are aware of these issues and
and they're aware of what storm water is.
If they're educated about it then they can know how to make a difference.
And Lauren's passion for the environment flows beyond her work with GreenCorps and
into the local waterways where she volunteers.
It's giving people opportunities to change, it's giving them opportunities to be involved,
and it's really just creating resilient communities.
I think that's really how it's affecting not only Winona but the state.
It's all small steps that we can take at home that really help make a difference as
a whole.
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