Archive for July 29th, 2013

State Parks: Volunteering at Parks

Monday, July 29th, 2013

No one holds a candle to Texas State Park volunteers

No one holds a candle to Texas State Park volunteers



This is Passport to Texas

Texas State Parks rely heavily on volunteers.

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

And that’s just manual labor, says Lori Reiley, state park volunteer coordinator. Those 600-thousand volunteer hours translate into big savings for state parks.

06— 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. 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 state parks on the Texas parks and Wildlife website.

That’s our show for today…with funding provided by Chevrolet, supporting outdoor recreation in Texas; because there’s life to be done.

We record our series at the Block House in Austin; Joel Block engineers our program.

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