By Andrea Christensen, WNPF Director of Donor Engagement
On a warm, sunny Saturday morning this summer, a small group of Washington’s National Park Fund staff and board members huddled in a circle, readying themselves for a morning of volunteer clean-up work. At the start, it felt a bit like organized chaos. “Do you have an extra rake? I forgot to bring mine!” someone shouted. Others sifted through a box of work gloves looking for a size that will fit. In the end, gear in hand, everyone walked over to hear from volunteer campground host Tom Lindsay about the tasks ahead of us.
Our small but eager group had made the multiple-hour drive from all over western Washington to the historic Longmire area in Mount Rainier National Park to focus on a short but not insignificant project that day: cleaning up the Longmire Stewardship Campground. This campground is reserved and utilized by VIPs, commonly known throughout the National Park Service as “Volunteers-In-Parks.”
As members of a team that focuses on giving back to the park through financial support, these types of opportunities to get our boots on the ground are important for us to see the impact of giving back to the parks. Our purpose that day was to rake piles of tree branches and leaves and move them out of campsites to make them more accessible for the volunteers who use this campground for overnight stays while they volunteer for multiple days or weeks in this heavily visited national park. While the park maintenance staff has their work cut out for them focusing on visitor campgrounds, visitor centers, comfort stations, and other priorities, it was our pleasure to jump in and help with this bite-sized project that we could complete that day.
This weekend made me even more aware of all the layers of support that are needed to run the park. We know about volunteers, but then there are people like Tom, who are there to support the volunteers… and then there are those who are there to literally move rocks to support the volunteers, who support the park, who support the millions of visitors. And boy did we see those millions later that weekend out on the trails!
As I raked up briars and branches around the campground, navigating around tents and RVs of all sizes, I was amazed to see license plates from across the country. Some people had driven from as far away as Texas to volunteer their time, making this campground their home for the upcoming several weeks!
I was proud to be a part of our group’s work that day, giving back to those who give back and culminating in the removal of 20 pickup trucks’ worth of tree branches and debris. Over the course of the afternoon, our crew got a small taste of the more than 60,000 volunteer hours that volunteers contribute each year, helping to supplement the parks’ resources that are already so thinly stretched. To all these dedicated park champions who give their time, all I can say is thank you.
Washington’s National Park Fund is the official philanthropic partner to Mount Rainier, North Cascades, and Olympic National Parks. With your help, we raise private support to preserve and protect Washington’s national parks, funding scientific research, youth and family experiences, and projects that will keep these parks strong and vital now and forever, for everyone. We are proud to support projects like the Volunteer Program at Mount Rainier, through which more than 1,700 volunteers give back to the park each year. You can learn more about volunteering at the park on the park’s website or donate to support programs like this one at wnpf.org/donate.
Cover photo by Alex Day.