When exploring and enjoying all adventures in Central Oregon, you’d be hard-pressed to find any areas that haven’t been improved by volunteers. Public land and private land — they all get a boost from passionate volunteers who offer up their time, sweat and tears to make the outdoors better than when they found it.

April is Earth Month and it is also Volunteer Appreciation Month, so let’s talk a little about how you can join in if you’re not doing it already. Getting involved can be as simple as grabbing a bag and picking up a few pieces of litter on your next walk, or doing something more organized and signing up to be a volunteer to help care for the parks and trails in our community.

In 2023 at Bend Park and Recreation District, more than 1,247 volunteers contributed time, effort and expertise, providing 44,949 hours of valuable service to the park district and our community. If you translated those hours into full-time employees, it is equivalent to 22 positions. While a big portion of those volunteers coached a youth sports program, we also have great examples of volunteers who helped outdoors.

Community interest in stewardship and caretaking in parks and trails is inspiring to me as a staff member. Volunteers help with cleanup, weed pulling, planting and special projects. They also serve as extra eyes and ears to monitor and report maintenance, graffiti and other safety concerns that have unfortunately grown in recent years.

Adopt-a-Park or Trail Section

Volunteers can adopt a specific area and take on seasonal landscape maintenance projects too. There are 27 parks and park amenities, including off-leash areas, and 18 trail sections or natural areas supported by volunteer adopters. Many volunteers adopt a site close to their home or office, so that visiting is simple and some continue their adoption for many years. This is a great opportunity if there is one place that holds a special place in your heart and you can visit frequently.

Volunteer hosts

The Bend park district volunteer hosts at Riley Ranch Nature Reserve and Shevlin Park are the friendly faces you might see by the parking areas or out walking in the park sporting their bright yellow vests. Volunteer hosts welcome visitors to offer information and share reminders for park rules — for Riley Ranch, that means no dogs and no bikes; for Shevlin, it’s a thank you for keeping dogs on leash. Volunteers cover a weekly 2-hour shift, and many report that their time spent in the parks is the highlight of their week. These hosts logged 687 volunteer hours last year — for that, BPRD thanks them.

Goose management

These are my favorite volunteers, because the opportunity includes dogs with amazing recall skills. Canada Geese can be detrimental to the parks, and volunteers help keep the birds moving and off the turf. There are 10 volunteers who visit parks regularly with their dogs to help with the goose management program. We have five more prospective goose hazers who will be evaluated later this month to see if they have what it takes to join in on the fun. Dog volunteers must reliably respond to commands, and have the instinct to herd and chase without causing any harm to the waterfowl. If you ever see a dog off-leash in a park with a bright yellow bandana, this is one of the official goose hazers.

Volunteer projects

The BPRD Natural Resources and Trails team are planning monthly volunteer work projects that will occur this spring and summer. We’ll ask volunteers to sign up in advance, and we encourage individuals and groups to join for a few hours of teamwork. A schedule will be on at bendparksandrec.org soon.

I encourage you to pick an activity that helps your favorite natural area as a volunteer this April. Every little bit adds up to a big impact.

To learn more about volunteering, visit bendparksandrec.org/volunteer.