My name is Donald Tisaki, I'm the project manager from the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay on the Ready program.
Ready is an acronym for restoring the environment and developing youth.
I'm Cynthia Marshall, I'm the lead organizer of PATH, People Acting Together in Howard.
Our organization came up with the idea of the Ready program and it came from asking people,
what are the top issues facing you and your family?
And it very quickly became clear that one of the top issues was employment for young adults.
And we found out at the same time that there was growing funding for stormwater runoff.
They asked us to help them put together a program to kind of marry those two objectives.
Creating green jobs that could employ young adults,
but also trying to help the county meet its needs for stormwater management using some new green approaches.
We actually gave a grant to the Alliance for the Chesapeake and there's a huge challenge we have
and that's to control a lot of stormwater runoff on areas that previously didn't have a lot of controls.
So let's try a little experiment here.
That's my house and oh by the way I'm going to put some fertilizer on the lawn, make it look nice.
Assume this is rainfall, where does all that water go?
Well what we do is we send that water down stormsores, which then go out to our rivers and streams.
The rain garden has a certain capacity to capture water, hold it for a little longer and allow it to percolate into the ground.
The young adults of the Ready program installed 31 rain gardens and conservation landscapes
to treat some 200,000 square feet of impervious surfaces.
Rather than directing the water from a downspout and splashing it out on a driveway and then sent to the stormwater system,
we can direct that water into the rain garden.
Plants on top actually serve a purpose other than just simply looking nice.
They actually can process up to 90% of the nutrients of nitrogen and phosphorus.
Less pollution are heading to the streams, more nutrients are ending up in these gardens where they can be useful to the plants
and we consider it to be a pretty big success.
It was very meaningful that these jobs were environmental jobs that was doing the right thing.
While I was working outside, although just because it was really hot here occasionally, it was something that was actually going to make a difference,
you know, more important than some of the other jobs that I could have done.
At first I was just really in it for a job, but then as I started doing it then I really started caring about the environment.
The people that are in my group are so smart, like I learn new stuff every day from them and I'm just like wow,
I would have never known that just working any other job.
I learned a lot about stormwater runoff.
I had no idea that it was so bad and that we shouldn't be sending it through the bay, so now I can tell other people about what I'm doing.
Projects like this yield a whole different set of benefits.
I mean these kids become stewards.
Cleaning up the Chesapeake is going to really be about that.
It's really about building a greater and more extensive stewardship ethic.
It's really going to make the difference.
