Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

April is Volunteer month. And as it happens, Texas State Parks rely heavily on the work of many dedicated volunteers throughout the year.

07—Over the last several years it’s been pretty consistent; we clock about six hundred and fifty thousand hours of volunteer time.

And that’s just manual labor, says Lori Reiley, state park volunteer coordinator. Those 650-thousand volunteer hours translate into millions of dollars of savings for state parks annually.

07—Our volunteers make up about a third of our workforce. So, we really couldn’t function as well without them.

Volunteers do everything from mowing lawns and scrubbing toilets to taking entrance fees and leading interpretive programs…and so much more. Reiley says state parks encourage and welcome new volunteers.

16—We could always use their help. And while we get the occasional civic organization or nonprofit that wants to volunteer for service projects, we really could always use more individuals just on a regular basis to come out and volunteer in the parks.

Find out how you can volunteer at Texas State Parks when you visit texasstateparks.org.

That’s our show for today…we record our series at the Block House in Austin…Joel Block engineers our program.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.