My Meandering Thoughts About Volunteers

As this week comes to a close I look back on the ten weeks I have spent in North Carolina, the things I have seen and listened to and I know that this is truly preparing me for the future. I have seen a great volunteer program that could be excellent with a little work, I have seen what it takes to hold a public meeting, I have listened to what the forest should do, and I have seen what the forest is doing.

While participating in the Trails Strategy I have learned that the volunteers are the ones out there doing the work, it’s sad to say but the forests have no money for trail work or maintenance. The forest relies heavily on the work of volunteers. This past week I have had the honor to hand out 40th anniversary of the volunteer act pins. Meeting with volunteers, many who have been volunteering their whole lives, was inspirational. It made me want to look at today’s youth and figure out how to give them the volunteering bug, or even the protecting our lands bug. During this internship I hope to help the volunteer program grow in region 8. I would like to see more time spent on volunteer training and forest service face time with volunteers, as well as, the little things like uniforms and recruitment. Some areas like the Pisgah have more volunteers then they can manage, others have too few volunteers. I would like to look at these and compare them to find out what’s working, how is it working and why.

Alright on to what I sent the last week doing. Not a very exciting week but I got some things accomplished which is always good. I scheduled then rescheduled a meeting, which is fun when you are dealing with district rangers who are super busy. If you have never had the opportunity to use doodle calendars. I highly recommend it. Its doodle.com and it is used to find out when people are available. and the creator you can select different dates and times  then you send out the email and people respond, putting their name and time they are available. Then you have an organized way to see the best dates. It’s wonderful and super easy. The rest of the week I worked on adding the corrections the collaborators sent me.

Sunday was National Get Outdoors Day. We had tons of stuff at the Cradle, like rock climbing and archery, horseback riding and fly fishing. It was awesome. Had a wonderful turn out, the kids really enjoyed it. Smokey the Bear even made a few appearances, but then he got tired and had to go back to the forest to spend time with his family and help prevent wildfires. All and all it was a great time. :)