122 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



In Newark, N.J., you will find a program salvaging trees in the 

 city. In Oklahoma City, landscape assistants are busy. This is one 

 program that is already underway in a large number of cities in 

 the United States and where youngsters are actually working on 

 projects that are designed to improve the local parks and open spaces. 



The other program is the one that I am myself more conversant 

 with, and that is the Job Corps. 



The Job Corps is another youth program for the 16- to 22-year-old 

 group. It is different from the others in that it is a residential pro- 

 gram. It is for youngsters who presumably must have some change 

 in their present environment if they are to have much of a chance to 

 break out of the cycle of poverty. 



Now in actual practice, most of the work program that is iden- 

 tified with the Job Corps is work on the public lands in conservation 

 work or in improving public recreational facilities and national parks 

 and forests. 



We have felt that there can be some programs where something a 

 good deal more pointed could be done, to have some effect on urban 

 areas as well. For example, in a number of our job centers around 

 the country we have enrollees taking on the actual improvement 

 of a city park as a project, say in the city adjacent to their camp. 

 We think it will make the people appreciate these youngsters a 

 good deal more if they are, in fact, doing something visible in such 

 a way that every time one goes by this park and realizes it is a lot 

 better looking than it used to be, he can say, "Thank us. We are 

 doing these things for you and you have not asked us to do it." 



I think this is a good program aside from what it accomplishes for 

 the community. More and more camps are opening up around 

 the country, and the taking on of such projects as this in the commu- 

 nity is very helpful. 



Secondly, we call your attention to such a program as the President 

 announced less than two weeks ago involving New Jersey and the 

 Federal Government. In this the State of New Jersey's Department 

 of Interior and the Office of Economic Opportunity are tying to- 

 gether Ellis Island, Liberty Island, and a blighted area on the New 

 Jersey waterfront. This may very well be one of the places in 

 the United States most in need of this kind of thing. 



What we propose to do here is create a Job Corps Center and over 

 a period of years have a work program pointed toward making a 

 shrine, in effect an historic shrine, out of Ellis Island. In my 



