"Powerful" might be the best way to describe our conservation impact. In 2011 members of The Corps Network restored or improved 5,739,259 acres of land — an area larger than the state of New Jersey.

While the mission of Service and Conservation Corps today is broad, building on the legacy of the Great Depression era Civilian Conservation Corps is still a major emphasis of our programs. The Civilian Conservation Corps (often affectionately referred to as the CCC) completed a myriad of infrastructural improvements to our national parks, national forests, and on lands during a time of great need. Many buildings and trails that were built by the CCCs are still in use today in places like Yellowstone and Grand Canyon National Parks, attesting to the high quality, durable work that Corpsmembers completed. While Corps already continue this legacy, you can learn more about our efforts to launch a 21st Century Conservation Service Corps that would expand the scope our work nationwide.

Beyond our impact on public lands, our work also now reaches many people directly where they live and work as Corps have developed home retrofit and energy efficiency programs that aim to help businesses, governments, and residents save money and energy. The Corps Network's Clean Energy Corps helps to incubate these kinds of conservation programs as well as promote green jobs and careers. 

Corps also restore public spaces in urban areas, grow organic community gardens, provide disaster relief, operate recycling programs, and provide numerous educational programs to their communities about how to reduce our environmental impact and conserve natural resources.

Our additional data indicate that in 2011 Service and Conservation Corps:

• Constructed, restored, and maintained 95,337 miles of trails—enough to circle the Earth almost 4 times.
   
• Helped thousands of people save money. Corpsmembers assessed or improved the energy efficiency in 55,191 homes. That’s similar to the number of houses in a city like Springfield, Illinois.
   
• Constructed 104,952 feet of boardwalks, footbridges, and walkways—a distance more than 11 times the length of the Golden Gate Bridge.
   
• Removed or eradicated exotic and invasive plants from 195,333 acres of land, an area nearly twice the size of Denver, Colorado.
   
• Planted over 1 million trees nationwide (1,005,145 to be exact).
   
• Created our maintained 883 community and neighborhood gardens.
   
• Installed 1,361 solar panels.
   
• Recycled 752,383 tons of materials.
   
• Conducted 9,193 presentations about energy efficient and environmentally-concious practices.