Bob Nixon

WETA Hometown Hero February 2006. Bob Nixon is the founder of Earth Conservation Corps, an organization that provides hands-on environmental education, job training and community service programs for urban youth.

Watch online »

Fobert H. Nixon, founder of the Earth Conservation Corps, is the focus of a month-long WETA’s Hometown Heroes profile airing in February 2006.

WETA selected Nixon for his dedication to, and vested interest in, Washington D.C.’s inner-city youth and the protection of the environment.

Earth Conservation Corps was founded in 1989 and began thriving under Nixon’s leadership in 1992. Located in Southeast Washington, the organization provides hands-on environmental education, job training and community service programs for urban youth between the ages of 17 and 25 years old.

Corps members conduct a variety of community service activities designed to restore the Anacostia River and provide opportunities to economically challenged communities. Volunteers for the organization have generated more than a million hours of community service and inspired more than 18,000 Washington, D.C. school children by taking them on tours of the Anacostia River.

Each July, Earth Conservation Corps inducts a new class of AmeriCorps members through a partnership with Serve DC. The eleven-month program engages members in a range of activities from river upkeep and raptor research to community outreach and GED training. Members serve full time and graduate from the program the following May. After completing the program, eighty-seven percent of Corps members enter higher education programs or find related employment.

One reason for the Corps’ success is its “service learning” philosophy – the idea that people learn while doing. The environment is the students’ classroom, and their projects to restore the environment are their lessons. The students can see the results of their work, and are often transformed in the process. Since its inception, the organization has graduated more than 300 young adults from its programs.

Nixon, a former Hollywood filmmaker, has dedicated all his recent efforts to the preservation of the Anacostia River and the surrounding environs through the education and work of area urban youth. Nixon’s work is focused on the young people – the Corps’ members and the thousands of youth that Corps members engage in meaningful environmental education.

In addition to members, the Earth Conservation Corps has recruited thousands of volunteers over the years to help restore the environment by engaging citizens of the metropolitan area and especially young people from schools, universities and community centers.

Go to website »