AmeriCorps Help Clean Lake Ontario Shoreline

OSWEGO – David Cuevas Jr. is a senior at SUNY Oswego, majoring in Public Justice. In addition, he has two minors, Forensic Science and Health Sciences.

Recently, he put his talents to work to improve the community and the environment.

Over the summer, he said he’s “been lucky enough to have the opportunity to serve a term with AmeriCorps here in Oswego County.”

“As an AmeriCorps member, we address critical needs in communities all across the United States. Each year, AmeriCorps offers 75,000 opportunities for adults of all ages and backgrounds to serve through a network of partnerships with local and national nonprofit groups. Since the program’s founding in 1994, almost one million members have served in AmeriCorps.”

He is currently an AmeriCorps member serving the Oswego County Youth Bureau.

“My position is with the Youth Court. For those who do not know what Youth Court is, it is a diversion program for kids under the age of 18 who get in trouble for violations, most misdemeanors and some felonies. Youth Court allows the offenders to go through a real hearing with real consequences. However, an offender will not receive jail or prison time, does not have to pay expensive attorney fees and is heard and judged by their peers. Youth Court is not a court in which the offender defends him/herself but is rather a court of guilt. This means in order for an offender to go through Youth Court they must admit their guilt,” Cuevas said.

Every offender that goes through Youth Court, receives some sentence, such as community service hours and two mandatory online courses.

Depending on the case, other sanctions, such as restitution and educational videos are sometimes required.

“I am responsible for a handful of tasks that help the Youth Court process cases faster and more efficiently,” Cuevas said. “Some of those responsibilities are setting up parent/offender meetings, organizing case files and sending out important notices to offenders and referring agencies, overseeing Youth Court hearings and probably the most important part of my position is setting up opportunities for youth offenders to complete their community service hours required by Youth Court.”

Over the course of the summer, he has set up a variety of community service opportunities for offenders. For example, every other Thursday he goes down to Camp Hollis from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. to paint/restore picnic tables and offenders who need community service hours are welcomed to come during the allotted time to help paint the tables.

In addition to setting up community service events for youthful offenders, he’s responsible for organizing a community involvement project. This project is a requirement of the AmeriCorps contract.

“As a requirement of my 450-hour contract with AmeriCorps, I was required to organize a project which incorporates members of the community to come help volunteer at an event that benefits a non-profit organization or society as a whole. On July 22, with the help of Alliance for the Great Lakes’ Adopt-a-Beach Program, I organized a Lake Ontario Shoreline Clean-up that took place between Bev’s Dairy Treat and SUNY Oswego’s west campus located along Route 89 in the town of Oswego,” he said.

The cleanup began at 10 a.m. and ended at 2 p.m.

Over the course of those four hours, seven volunteers and Cuevas collected five trash bags full of plastic pieces, metal shards, and other various items that washed up along the shore.

“To our surprise, there was an abundance of female hygiene applicators that were collected,” he added.

Each bag of trash weighed approximately 10 pounds, totaling around 53 pounds for the cleanup.

The reason he chose to do a Lake Ontario shoreline cleanup was because he wanted to do something that benefits the community as well as the environment.

“Every year thousands of marine animals are victims of our pollution. By performing a cleanup on the shorelines of Lake Ontario this will hopefully reduce the amount of debris entering Lake Ontario,” he explained. “In addition to environment sustainability, Oswego attracts a lot of tourism during the summer months and I wanted visitors to be able to enjoy clean the shorelines as they enjoy their stay in Oswego.”

Print this entry