What Takes Root in the Forest

On a humid morning in Frazer Forest, a group of high school students spreads out across a slope, scanning the ground for a familiar plant. The leaves are glossy, dark green, and easy to miss if you’re not looking closely. Once you see it, though, it’s everywhere.

Cherry laurel.

They’ve been pulling it for weeks.

“Every group that’s come through here has been working on the same thing,” said Drew Kenner, a Youth Tree Team mentor with Trees Atlanta. “We’re five weeks in, and there’s still so much.”

The work is steady and physical. Students crouch low to pull roots from the soil. When the plants are too stubborn, they switch to handsaws. Piles of cut branches grow larger, markers of progress that will later be cleared so the invasive plant doesn’t return.

It’s not quick work. It’s not easy to measure in a single day. But over time, it changes the forest.

A Partnership That Shows Up Every Season

The Youth Tree Team is part of Trees Atlanta’s summer employment program for high school students. Each week, teams rotate through sites across the city, learning how to care for urban forests through hands-on work.

Frazer Forest has become one of those sites.

Students don’t just visit once. Over the course of the summer, different crews return again and again, building on each other’s work. What one group starts, another continues.

That rhythm mirrors a broader partnership. Trees Atlanta also leads monthly forest restoration volunteer days on Frazer’s campus, bringing community members into the same work these students are doing now.

The result is a kind of continuity that’s hard to replicate. Paid youth crews, volunteers, and staff all working toward the same long-term goal: a healthier forest that can support native plants and wildlife.

Learning by Doing

For many of the students, this is their first experience with environmental work.

“They’re actually doing the entirety of the work,” Drew said. “They’re out here in the forest two days a week. The other days, they’re in the classroom working with data, learning the Geographic Information System, and understanding what all of this looks like on a bigger scale.”

Some students arrive at Trees Atlanta with a clear interest in environmental careers. Others sign up for the Youth Tree Team because they’re looking for a summer job. The program meets both groups where they are.

“You’ve got students who love it and want to do this long term,” Drew said. “And then you’ve got others who’ve never heard of these kinds of jobs before. But even then, that exposure sticks with you. Once you see how conservation shows up in your daily life, you can’t really unsee it.”

The work also comes with a paycheck. For many students, it’s their first paid job, and it carries a different kind of responsibility.

A Glimpse of What Comes Next

For students like Liam Rocks, a Leader-in-Training with Drew’s group, the experience is already shaping what comes next.

“After this, I’ll be going into my senior year of high school,” Liam said. “When I get to college, I’m interested in studying conservation biology.”

Standing in the forest, he points to the work happening around him.

“What we’re doing here is helping the native plants that are already here,” he said. “When we remove things like cherry laurel, it gives those plants a better chance to grow. It also helps any endangered plants that might be here.”

The connection is direct. The work they’re doing now has visible results.

“It helps shift things back toward the native plants instead of letting invasive ones take over,” he said.

What Stays Behind

By the end of the day, the forest doesn’t look dramatically different at first glance. The canopy is still dense. The trails still wind through the same terrain.

But look closer, and the changes are there. Cleared patches. Stacked brush piles. Small openings where light can reach the ground again.

The impact builds over time.

That’s true for the forest, and it’s true for the students.

Some will go on to study environmental science or forestry. Others won’t. But each of them leaves with a clearer understanding of how a place like this is cared for—and what it takes to keep it that way.

The work doesn’t end when the summer does. Another group will come through. Volunteers will return. The cycle continues.

In an old-growth forest like this, that’s how change happens.

To learn more about the Trees Atlanta Youth Tree Team job training program, visit HERE.