Join P-CREW
A Meaningful Summer Experience for High School Students
Get paid to live, work, learn, and play outdoors while making a lasting impact on California’s forests and watersheds.
What’s P-CREW?
Plumas Conservation, Restoration, and Education in Watersheds (P-CREW) is a five-week, paid summer program for high school students (grades 10–12). Participants earn a paycheck while gaining career skills, restoring ecosystems, and growing personally and professionally in California’s Sierra Nevada.
What to Expect
Students will spend each day outdoors camping, cooking, working, and exploring. Learning side-by-side with experienced professionals, you’ll gain practical skills for forest and watershed management. Sunrise hikes, swims, quiet fires, and moonlit skies offer adventure while building teamwork and growth. By summer’s end, you’ll carry skills, relationships, and experiences to last a lifetime.
Work that Matters
Crews will work 40 hours per week on projects like trail construction and maintenance, invasive species removal, fuel load reduction, and erosion control. Participants will learn directly from professionals including hydrologists, biologists, fire ecologists, and Forest Service staff—gaining hands-on insight into land management, fire recovery, and overall forest health.
Education in Action
Participate in daily lessons on fire and watershed ecology, traditional ecological knowledge, and climate resilience. Through our partnership with Feather River College, you can even earn college credit in Basic Trail Building Techniques. These experiences combine practical learning, professional guidance, and academic enrichment to prepare you for meaningful work in land and forest stewardship.
Recreation & Community
Weekends are for play, reflection, and connection. Whether it’s backpacking, rock climbing, or simply swimming in alpine lakes, you’ll have time to unwind, explore the backcountry, and bond with your crew. P-CREW is a welcoming, inclusive space for youth from all backgrounds. The experience helps build leadership, communication, and problem-solving skills that last long beyond the summer.
What’s Included
To make the program accessible to all participants, everything is provided at no cost, including nutritious meals and snacks, all outdoor gear and technical equipment, transportation to and from the program, CPR and First Aid certification, and supervision from experienced crew leaders with advanced wilderness medical training. Note: Gear must be returned at the end of the session.
Safety & Communication
We prioritize your safety above all. Each crew carries a satellite communication device for emergencies, completes daily check-ins with program support staff, and is supervised by crew leaders trained in Wilderness First Aid and emergency response. Projects are pre-screened to meet high safety standards. To fully immerse in the experience, participants are offline during the session. Families will receive weekly email updates and one phone call from participants during a scheduled resupply day.
Why Apply?
P-CREW isn’t just a summer job—it’s a transformative outdoor leadership experience. You’ll leave the program with a paycheck, hands-on job experience and field training, college credit (optional), lifelong friendships and confidence in the outdoors, and a deeper connection to the land—and your future.
Join P-CREW as a Seasonal Staff Member
We’re always looking for passionate, motivated leaders to guide P-CREW each summer. As a staff member, you’ll gain hands-on field experience, optional college credit, professional training, a paycheck, and the chance to build lifelong friendships while connecting deeply with the land and inspiring the next generation of youth stewards.
Partners of P-CREW
We’re grateful to the businesses and organizations that make P-CREW possible. Their support helps provide hands-on learning experiences and opportunities for youth to grow as future stewards.
Show your support by engaging with these sponsors, or join them in helping P-CREW thrive—contact us at pcrew@sierrainstitute.us to get involved.
Lassen National Forest, Plumas National Forest, Lassen Volcanic National Park, California State Parks, Parks California, Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation, Wildlife Conservation Board, National Forest Foundation, Plumas Resource Advisory Committee, Lassen Resource Advisory Committee, Collins Pine Museum, California Workforce Development Board, Sandy Mailliard Trail Angel, Abram’s Family, Feather River College, Patagonia, REI, Bread for the Journey Plumas Chapter, and our P-CREW Alumni and their families.
Contact Us
P-CREW Program Office
P.O. Box 11, 4438 Main Street, Taylorsville, CA 95983
Phone: 530-284-1022 | Fax: 530-284-1023
Email: pcrew@sierrainstitute.us
Join our mailing list
We’re hard at work in our local forests and communities and we’re excited to share important updates with you via our monthly newsletter. Thank you for your interest in our work and being part of our community!
