Martin Dies, Jr. State Park posts opportunities for volunteers which you can access online. Go to these Instructions to learn how.
Other opportunities are announced via email, or monitor our Event Calendar for upcoming events. A list of ongoing opportunities are listed below. Ask about joining them when you attend the monthly meeting. You can also find a volunteer opportunity you are interested in doing and get it approved for service! Anyone can attend our board meetings which are held the Thursday before regular monthly meetings to find out more about what’s going on, or present a new idea for a project. Watch the Event Calendar for the time and place.
Citizen Science: Document observations for iNaturalist and eBird. If we are out hiking or working in the yard and just happen to see and document an observation that we upload, that wouldn’t count — that would be casual or incidental. But if we plan an outing, dedicate the time to actually looking for what we want to document, put an effort into getting a picture of it, and then actually upload our data, that time would count, even if we’re by ourselves.
Head Start: Volunteers present nature programs to preschoolers on Wednesday mornings.
Outreach: Activities like manning an LRMN booth at some event, such as the Azalea Festival and Butterfly Festival, and hours spent preparing outreach materials.
Birding Classic/Big Sit: Longleaf Ridge forms as team each year to participate in the Great Texas Birding Classic held during May. The team identifies and records all bird species observed from the observation deck at Martin Dies Jr., State Park.
Project Feederwatch: Starts 2nd Saturday in November for 21 Weeks. Join the project (it costs $18 for an instructional kit). Identify birds at your feeder for two consecutive days each week, record species counts, and upload all data to the website.
Great Backyard Bird Count: Held for four days each February. There is no cost, but you must create a Cornell Lab Account to report your data.
Nestwatch: Become a certified nestwatcher by taking a quiz, locate nests, monitor according to protocol, and upload data to the website.
Keep Jasper Beautiful offers several opportunities for service. The Great American Trashoff is held each year in April. LRMN volunteers can assist the Master Gardeners in their cleanup of the two miles they have adopted on on Highway 2799. LRMN has quarterly cleanups at the Big Thicket’s McQueen’s Landing. Also, if you find a public place that’s trashed out and you want to clean it up, just take before and after pictures and submit them to the Board to get service hours.