NPLD for Volunteers

National Public Lands Day is a fantastic opportunity to get off the couch and out into beautiful natural settings. Volunteers can participate as a family or with school, community, or national groups such as the Student Conservation Association, Outdoor Nation, Boy Scouts of America, or Girl Scouts of the USA. The event is a great opportunity to get kids outside and help erase the “nature deficit” among the next generation. All volunteers will get the satisfaction that comes from preserving and protecting their favorite public places, along with the physical exercise and family togetherness of a day full of enhancing, planting, and beautifying.

However, even if you are not able to physically attend an NPLD event, you can still connect to iconic parks, national forests, marine estuaries, and other public lands sites through one-of-a-kind virtual events such as ranger talks, virtual hikes and dives, and online citizen science projects that are both entertaining and educational.

Any project that benefits public lands can be registered for NPLD. The majority of projects are focused on habitat restoration, such as tree plantings, trash or invasive plant removal, bird or bat house construction, trail maintenance, fence removal, and gardening. Historic sites typically host beautification projects including trash pick-ups, painting, sculpture renovation, and other needed projects.

Some public lands do not have the ability to host volunteer events. In these cases, they usually hold some sort of education programming, both virtual and on-site. Examples include hikes, talks on public land issues, fishing derbys, festivals, classes on water quality testing, and geocaching programs.

No! Events range from small family trail clean-ups to 500 person mega-events that mobilize entire communities. You can even host a virtual event!