Find Fun Ways to Give Back

By: Susan B. Barnes | Source: AARP.org

For many, volunteering is a way of life. Whether taking part consists of a few hours after work, an entire day, or months or years at a time, volunteering fulfills a need to give back.

Restoring the Past
The mission of the Heritage Conservation Network is to protect architectural heritage globally. Founded in 2002, the non-profit organization receives requests from all over the world and has pre-determined criteria to figure out which projects to tackle.

“Our workshops last one to two weeks at a site,” said Judith Broeker, co-founder and program director at the conservation organization. “It’s our goal to inspire locals to pick up where we leave off to complete the job.”

The group currently organizes seven workshops a year. Each of those typically has six to seven volunteer participants ranging from 16 to 80 years old.

“Amazing amounts of work get done for that small of a number,” Broeker said. “Everyone does what they can do.

“Each site we visit is amazing and has a really valuable building for the people or the country,” she added. “It’s a great area to work in—everyone wants to be there.”

Heritage Conservation Network currently has four U.S. opportunities scheduled for 2008, two of which are still being finalized. The two that are set include Prairie Preservation at the Hutmacher Homestead, a stone-slab construction in western North Dakota, and Saving the Susan Marr House in a mining town in Montana.

International opportunities include Clues to the Cloister in Italy, the yet-to-be-finalized Restoring the Heart of a Vineyard in Slovenia, and Kulle Conservation in Albania.

“In this day and age of being green, preservation is as green as you can get,” Broeker said. “We’re seeing what’s there and preserving it.”

Get Out There!
With 391 parks dotted throughout the United States, the National Park Service offers a plethora of volunteer opportunities in your own backyard, in cities, and in suburbs.

“Most people think of the great parks like the Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon when they think of us,” said Kathy Kupper, spokeswoman for the National Park Service. “But opportunities are much closer than people think.”

Volunteers with the park service do everything that the staff does, according to Kupper, including horse patrol, ski patrol, living history, building hiking/walking/biking trails, gardening, carpentry, and photography, in addition to campground hosting and staffing visitors centers. The possibilities are endless.

“For anyone who’s always dreamed of being a park ranger, it’s never too late,” Kupper said.

A truly unique opportunity is the artist-in-residence program, in which an artist lives within a park, gives demonstrations, and runs workshops during the duration of his or her stay. These opportunities are currently available in California, Maine, Minnesota, Arizona, Colorado, and more.

Kupper estimated that 50 percent of the National Park Service volunteers are retirees. In 2007, the organization benefited from a total of 5.4 million hours donated by 163,000 volunteers with a total monetary value of more than $101 million, or the equivalent of having an additional 2,596 full-time employees.

“Our volunteers help us see the parks in a different way sometimes,” she said. “We love working with our volunteers as much as they love working in the parks.”

The National Park Service is gearing up for its centennial in 2016, and over the next year or so, they’ll really start lining up volunteers for seasonal positions. Some of the positions may even be paid, according to Kupper; those positions will be listed on USAJOBS as they become available.

To find volunteer opportunities near you, visit www.nps.gov and click on “Find a Park.” Once on a local park’s Web site, search for volunteer opportunities or contact the volunteer coordinator.