Michaux Conservancy

Michaux Restoration Crew, a Civic Justice Corps (CJC)
The Michaux Restoration Crews (MRC) intends to offer job training and education in the green collar professions of ecological restoration and environmentally responsible landscaping to at-risk and court-involved young adults. MRC will improve the lives of young people in North Charleston and the surrounding communities who are no longer in school but are still in need of continuing education and job skills to combat unemployment and improve the community in which they live. Through work, continued education, and accountability, we will build the character of our young adults, improve our communities, and enhance our natural world.
The Noisette Foundation’s original Lowcountry Civic Justice Corps (LCJC) was created as an innovative social justice program that taught green construction skills and was successful due to its intense focus on life skills. The Michaux Restoration Crew (MRC) intends to follow this model, learn from its challenges, and build upon its success. Under the Michaux Conservancy, with its mission to teach the local community about the ecosystems in the nature world in which they live and how these systems benefit their health, the MRC will continue to use Michaux’s hands-on, project-specific style of teaching as it focuses on offering environmentally responsible landscaping skills and ecological restoration to the young adults in this community.
The watershed around Noisette Creek will continue to be a focus of conservation for Michaux and a teaching tool for the Michaux Restoration Crew. Additionally, MRC will be working with several local partners interested in building and maintaining green landscapes and monitoring existing restoration projects. Our primary technical partner is Biohabitats, Inc. (www.biohabitats.com), a nationally renowned conservation planning, ecological restoration and regenerative firm, whose work is primarily with NGOs and government organizations. Having industry leaders assist with teaching technical skills on job sites, coupled with the MRC crew leaders reinforcing necessary life skills and securing a strong educational foundation for each crew member, the MRC program will ensure the success of its crew graduates.
Initially, the MRC will consist primarily of court-involved youth, and youth at-risk between the ages 18 and 24 from in and around the North Charleston area. Restoration projects will be located in the greater Charleston area, with a high priority placed on Noisette Creek and other urbanized areas within the Noisette Footprint. Crew members will graduate from the MRC Program with marketable skills in ecological restoration and environmentally responsible landscaping. The technical skills learned can also easily be transferred into more traditional fields in the horticultural industry, such as nursery management, landscape planting, and grounds maintenance.

Michaux Mini Farm
We are establishing a quarter-acre MiniFarm that will provide a variety of fruits and vegetables for impoverished, underserved children living within Noisette communities surrounding the Navy Yard.  As is common in many low-income communities, Noisette’s population is plagued by a high rate of diabetes, obesity and heart disease, caused by poor nutrition. Our first plant begins this spring with spring and summer crops.

Our goal is, first and foremost, to make this MiniFarm the community’s own. A team of experts in organic gardening, permaculture, education, and community organizing has started the farming and outreach efforts. Ultimately we wish to see the community take ownership of the farm.

We are working with Metanoia Young Leaders program, an afterschool program, that teaches children about leadership skills. Drawing upon Metanoia’s deep community roots, we hope to engage both children and parents in the gardening process. The Metanoia students will develop a business plan and, based upon this business plan, they will distribute produce to the community through a student-run farm stand at the local farmer’s market. We hope the farmstand will eventually expand to a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) led and organized by the Young Leaders of the Metanoia program. CSA’s allow consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer.

We are also working to arrange cooking classes for children and community members. The classes will encourage healthy eating choices and the use of whole foods.  We believe that an integral part of reducing diabetes and obesity rates in our area will come from not only having a deep-seated connection with our food sources, but also the knowledge base of how to prepare these whole foods in a fun and healthy way.