Written by Kasey Murphy

It’s finally getting nicer out, and everyone is wanting to be outside and doing activities! This is a great time to be a state park volunteer or be a part of a national park volunteer program. What better way to give back to the community than to help enforce the beauty of a state or national park? 

Many national park volunteer programs might have grown over the pandemic, as people really wanted to get involved. So, it’s time to reel back in all of the national parks volunteers and state parks volunteers with some great ideas! 

We’ve broken up different volunteer activities into categories for both national and state park volunteers. 

State or National Park Maintenace Volunteer 

These national or state park volunteers will be really interested in the park itself, and all of the natural beauty it has to offer. They will want to be familiar with the park at some point in time! 

Conservation Projects 

Conservation projects can be long-term or national park volunteers can help with short-term aspects. It would be good to have a leader to help organize research volunteers, conservation building, and awareness. 

For more on conservation - visit this article. 

Trash Cleanup

Hopefully, there is not a lot of trash, litter, and disarray in national and state parks. But, cleanup is an easy activity for large groups of volunteers to tackle, and a great way to encourage clean national and state parks! 

Trail Inspectors 

Park volunteers can inspect trails for any danger or misplaced items and report them to the national park service! This is one of the easiest ways to volunteer at national parks, as it can be done on the volunteer’s own time! 

How Volunteer Software Can Point Out Issues In Your National Park

Groundwork Cleanup

Similar to trash cleanup, groundwork cleanup allows national and state park volunteers to work on soiling, planting, and helping make the park look its absolute best for visitors and sponsors! 

State or National Park Service Volunteer

These volunteers work more so to help service the national parks and state parks with jobs that might require additional skillsets. They also might be shift work or more job-like than other volunteer opportunities, and are best done alone! 

Campground Volunteer 

If a national or state park has a campground, volunteers can work as security guards or even to check people in if there is a fee or anyone who needs to help keep the campground under control! 

Park Transportation

Some national and state parks have a tram or bus that can take them to other places within the park. National park volunteers can operate these transportation devices, and probably have fun meeting new people! 

Trail Building

If a national or state park wants a new trail or pathway, volunteers can most certainly help with the building and manual labor aspect of this! They can clear pathways, remove or conserve any areas that might need it! 

Community Communications Park Volunteer 

These types of national parks volunteers might really work on events or gathering an audience to the national and state parks for help raising money and awareness of its natural beauty. 

Event Management 

Volunteers can physically work at events collecting tickets, money, directing parking traffic, or even just setting up events that national parks put on! National and state park volunteers might love to be involved in events, and parks are a great place to have these events! 

Event Outreach 

If a national park or state park does not have many events, volunteers can work to help coordinate events, brainstorm ideas, or work with other local organizations and businesses to use the park space for their events! 

Educational Days 

One of the best ways for national and state parks to work with the community is to serve the youth in a learning experience. Volunteers can help plan, set up, or even teach some parts of an educational day to local schools! 

Administrative Task Park Volunteer 

Many national parks or state parks are volunteer-oriented in everything that they do. Don’t forget that people who volunteer at national parks might just want to volunteer to be involved. These people would be perfect for administrative volunteers at your national park! 

Photography Volunteer 

Many people are interested in photography and national and state parks have SO MUCH that someone can take photos of and promote. Ask park volunteers if they are interested in taking photos of the national park and you can use them for marketing purposes!

Website Building 

In addition, a national or state park’s website might need to be updated regularly. If there is no one at the park who does this, national park and state park volunteers can most certainly help with this! Especially those who might have experience doing this already. 

Research 

Research for conservation, grants, events, plant types, animal types - the more projects that a national or state park dives into, the more research is needed. Have volunteers focus on helping in a more backend way!

All of this might seem overwhelming and like there are so many different things for a national park volunteer or state park volunteer to do- and it’s true! There is so much that a park volunteer program can offer. The best way to make sure a park volunteer program is offering all it can is to have an organized way to track volunteers and volunteer programs. 

Using a tool like Track It Forward can help organize volunteer time into different activities and narrow down categories that volunteers want to participate in, and where a park might need more assistance from volunteers!