Environmental Alliancefor Senior Involvement

With a generous grant from the United Parcel Service Foundation, EASI, the National Parks Service and the National Park Foundation have established Volunteer Senior Ranger Corps (VSRCs) to help meet priority needs at eight of America’s national parks through partnerships between the Park and its  surrounding communities. In its first six months, the VSRC program has proved highly successful.  It has reached 108 groups to support the parks in six  months, attracting 180 older volunteers who worked 1,901 hours.  

VSRC members also share their environmental ethic with young people, helping to assure the future of this country’s national park system.  VSRC volunteers and youths together gave 4,757 hours of volunteer service at the parks for the six-month period. Volunteer Senior Ranger Corps collaborate with the Parks to help build trails, monitor water and wildlife, repair historic structures, catalog photographs, and educate local citizens and youth. All volunteers  work within their physical capabilities. Some projects require muscle, while others are less strenuous.
 
At Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Volunteer Senior Ranger Corps volunteers work on landscaping and archeology projects, and educate school children about the Park’s resources.  In Orem, Utah, VSRC members manage and lead the Timpanogos Cave National Monument’s Behind A Tour  Specialist (BATS) program and train  high-school students to help lead interpretive walks through the caves.

Volunteer Senior Ranger Corps volunteers, working side by side with teenagers, have helped remove invasive plants from along the George Washington Memorial Parkway in McLean, Virginia;  Point Reyes National Seashore, California; and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  Youth and VSRC members have made the Fire Island National Seashore more accessible for disabled and older visitors.  Seniors design and plan the projects, and young volunteers provide the labor.

In Nebraska, VSRC volunteers work with local youth organizations and inner-city school students to organize and catalog the Homestead National Monument of America’s collection of thousands of photographs.  At the Eisenhower National Historic Site in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, VSRC members also catalog and organize photographs for public accessibility. All EASI programs are hosted by local organizations such as Retired and Senior Volunteer Programs, senior centers, faith-based organizations and local governments. 

HOMESTEAD NATIONAL MONUMENT OF AMERICA- Tallgrass Prairie Volunteer Senior Ranger Corps Senior volunteers work with local youth organizations and students from inner-city schools in nearby Lincoln and Omaha to organize and catalog the Park’s photograph collection.   They also research famous homesteaders at their homes.    In addition,  the volunteers work with the day to day operation of the park and the program, including a quarterly deer survey includes volunteers assisting staff members in walking the distance of the park in a line to push out the deer and then other volunteers monitor the number of deer leaving the park boundary.  The volunteers also work on various other projects including monthly water quality monitoring with 8th graders and seniors.  

FIRE ISLAND NATIONAL SEASHORE- Suffolk County Senior Ranger Corps
The VSRC volunteers focus their efforts on making the park more accessible for disabled or elderly visitors.  Seniors provide the design and planning for the Green Access construction projects, while youth volunteers will provide the labor for their realization.

POINT REYES NATIONAL SEASHORE- Sonoma County Volunteer Senior Ranger Corps
VSRC volunteers work with youth volunteer corps to limit the spread of non-native plant species throughout the seashore.

TIMPANOGOS CAVE NATIONAL MONUMENT- Mountainland Volunteer Senior Ranger Corps
VSRC volunteers manage and lead the Park’s Behind A Tour Specialist (BATS) program, which trains high-school-aged youth to assist with interpretive walks in the caves.
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON MEMORIAL PARKWAY- Northern Virginia Senior Ranger Corps
VSRC volunteers work to remove invasive exotic plant species in the marsh and re-establish native vegetation. With students from a nearby high school, seniors collect, nurture, and transplant native plant seeds from the marsh. The volunteer-driven efforts to remove invasive, non-native vegetation and trash from Dyke Marsh throughout 2002 made a visible impact on the swamp forest and tidal shoreline areas. After a year’s worth of habitat restoration work at Dyke Marsh, the native species’ growth have
shown marked improvement with a resurgence of natural ground-cover in the demonstration plot where efforts were focused to clear invasive, non-native plants. This re-growth of native vegetation will have a significant impact on the future of the natural habitat at Dyke Marsh as it spreads and helps the area to recover from decades of non-native plant overgrowth and pollution from trash in the Potomac River.

EISENHOWER NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE- Adams County Volunteers Senior Ranger Corps
VSRC members recruit students to volunteer, focusing especially on El Centro, a minority youth group in Adams County that hosts after-school and summer programs for at-risk children.

CARLSBAD CAVERNS- Carlsbad Senior Ranger Corps
Seniors work with the Parkids summer camp to monitor water-quality and riparian wildlife.  They also educate the children on cave restoration and conservation, trail maintenance, fire prevention and erosion control. 

CUYAHOGA VALLEY NATIONAL PARK- Summit County Volunteer Senior Ranger Corps
VSRC volunteers monitor trails on a regular basis to ensure visitor safety.  They also assist in unearthing historic evidence in the park so that historic properties can be more accurately restored, depicted, and interpreted. 

ADAMS COUNTY PaSEC - The Adams County PaSEC and Volunteer Senior Ranger Corps have made significant contributions to the National Park Service's Eisenhower Farm facility by re-cataloging its extensive book collection, scanning photographs into digital files, providing information (the National Park Service's "interpretation") to visitors to the showbarn, planting and maintaining the garden, and videotaping special presentations at the Teachers Academy and the Korean War Weekend event.  These dedicated volunteers are integral to the ongoing enhancement and protection of our nation's cultural and historic resources.