In the trees behind the Shandler Recreation Area at the southeast corner of Van Cortlandt Park, 20 Bronx teens with gloves and shovels work around a growing circle of cleared brush.

Laboring to the sounds from a boom box propped in a wheel barrow, these teens make up the first line of defense in the park against the shrubs that close over trails and choke out fragile, newly planted trees.

The Friends of Van Cortlandt Park have brought more than 600 teens to work in the park since 1992, when the nonprofit organization first hired eight young people to clear trash over the summer.

This year, thanks to additional financial help, the summer hires will be joined by six of the Friends’ academic-year interns.

“Teens definitely play a critical role in trail maintenance, especially in the summer because they’re here so much,” says Christina Taylor, executive director of the Friends of Van Cortlandt Park.

Students work four days a week, eight hours a day for TK weeks during the summer

In addition to year-round interns, 14 of this year’s students come from New York’s Summer Youth  Employment Program (SYEP). Chosen by lottery, 5,000 Bronx teens in SYEP work all over the borough, many of them in parks.

Assistance from the Louis and Anne Abrons Foundation, St. James’ Church and the Mosholu Preservation Corporation (publisher of the Norwood News) has allowed the group of academic year youth interns to continue working this summer. The interns, who mostly follow an educational program during the year, provide a dedicated core to the group of summer teens.

Every day, the team meets their supervisors, Katherine Lockey and Enyiekere Enyiema at the park’s southern edge, where they pick up shovels and wheelbarrows and trek out to one of their work sites in the park.

Working in the park isn’t for everyone. To weed out the faint of heart, the program’s staff start the first day of summer work with a long, rigorous hike.  Most of the teens choose to stay on. Taylor says only one or two have quit this summer.

“We’ve cleared the Nature Center, the Van Cortlandt House Museum, and the Muir Trail,” says Andrew Brown, a 14-year-old student from Norwood who joined the Friends’ Junior Naturalist Program four years ago because of his interest in science.  

On a recent Tuesday afternoon, Kino Browne, an SYEP participant, explains how the teens uproot mugwort, poison ivy and jewel weed. This summer has been Kino’s first in the SYEP program and in Van Cortlandt Park.  He says he’ll probably be back for more next year.

Browne and his colleagues will also have other options. As part of the Summer Teen Program, these students have also had job training from the Riverdale Neighborhood House to help them find work later on. We also have a “lot of lessons in common sense,” says Taylor, coming back from a lesson with a student on how to manage a shovel.  

Jessica Pena, a 15-year-old student at the High School for Math, Science and Engineering, says she appreciates the chance to work in her own neighborhood.  

“I live around here. It’s stuff you see every day,” Pena says. “I think it’s good to get involved, especially in your own neighborhood.”

The teens also find other benefits to working in the park.  Among the plants the students uproot, Andrew says, they also pull up wineberries. “We like to eat those first.”