Volunteers of America

I've been volunteering with NRCS for a little more than a year now. It's been basically awesome. I've been getting tons of experience, they've been getting free help, I've been getting free training. I want to work for them. What I'm doing in New Orleans will help prepare me for that as I continue volunteering (more on NOLA soon, promise). This past week was National Volunteer Week, and I received sweet letters and cards and swag and gifts from some of the offices I've been spending time with. They also had me write an article to appear on the state's volunteer info site, and eventually also on the national volunteer showcase. They edited me down, but here's what I had to say (no matter how many times I rewrote it, I never felt like my enthusiasm was properly conveyed. Please, ask me about how much I love NRCS sometime)--

I joined the Earth Team about a year ago to gain more experience in conservation fieldwork while looking for full-time work after grad school. With a background in Geography, I only knew that I wanted to help the environment for a living, but wasn’t really sure how to do that. I was immediately met with a lot of great ideas and opportunities. What started as helping one office with occasional conservation planning and clerical work became an awesome adventure in over 200 hours of greatly varied fieldwork through four different offices (so far!). It’s been really exciting to see so many different places and practices.

I started in New Jersey’s Freehold Service Center. I went with the staff for many conservation planning meetings, helping with surveys, mapping and GIS, and spot checks. I occasionally visited the Columbus Service Center to gain experience with engineering surveys. New Jersey has so much diversity in such a small area, so I was already exposed to a wide variety of projects focused on drainage, irrigation, cover crops, wetlands rehabilitation and wildlife habitats. It’s been very interesting to see the different environments and how conservation practices are adjusted to accommodate them.

In the fall, I was working in northern New Jersey a few days a week, so I decided to call the Hackettstown Service Center to continue my volunteering. I was taking a soil science course at the time, so I got involved with soil investigations all over northern New Jersey, including rural and urban environments. This has really helped me create a broader foundation (literally!) for understanding conservation issues. I’ve been able to help with soil evaluations as well as some outreach, helping lead a fieldtrip for college students and proctor the upcoming Envirothon.

After exploring conservation all over New Jersey, I found myself in Arizona for a few months, so what did I do? Found my nearest NRCS office! Through the Kingman Field Office, I was able to see a completely different side of conservation in the desert of northwestern Arizona. It was certainly eye-opening to see how farming, ranching and conservation take place in such an arid environment, especially compared to the practices I’ve become familiar with in New Jersey. I assisted with Natural Resource Inventory and learned about the desert’s biodiversity. I also helped with surveying on reservation land to prevent erosion of the dry, sandy ground under the rare but heavy rainfall. I mostly assisted with rangeland management projects, spot checking invasive species control and fencing projects.

Since I’ve been back in New Jersey, I’ve been back to helping with more familiar work in soil investigations and conservation planning, as well as some office work. The field is definitely more exciting for me, but I don’t mind assisting with filing and mailings—it’s good to know the background work involved in conservation, and I’m also happy to help out the agency that has given me the opportunity to see so many different ways that conservation is being done. I’m moving to New Orleans in the fall to work for a year, and I’m definitely looking forward to getting in touch with NRCS in Southern Louisiana!