Tag: volunteer
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Youth Conservation Corps Through My Camera Roll
The following was written and photographed by Elizabeth Menjivar, an intern in King County’s 6-week Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) program last summer. The 24 interns participated in workshops to deepen their connection with nature, went on field trips to meet professionals engaged in conservation work, and engaged in thoughtful conversations about environmental justice. Digital cameras…
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A Father and Daughter Bond Over Volunteering with Parks
Anyssa and Will Eng are a daughter and father duo who volunteer with the King County Parks Volunteer program. After being introduced to forest restoration through the Youth Conservation Corps, Anyssa joined our public volunteer events with her father! We caught up with them to learn more about their experience volunteering as a family.
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Highlights from the King County Parks 2023 Volunteer Program
Each year the King County Parks Volunteer Program and contracted partner organizations host volunteer events in parks across the county. Together with our partners in 2023, we led hundreds of events with more than 4,900 volunteers performing restoration, park improvement, trail maintenance, and more.
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MLK Day Events and Volunteer Opportunities
The mental health benefits of volunteering and coming together in community are known to prevent feelings of isolation, build connection, and ignite passion for common causes. On this upcoming Martin Luther King Day, consider devoting a few hours to your community through service or coming together with others with shared interests. Several local volunteer and…
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How are we doing?
King County Parks is updating our King County Open Space Plan: Parks, Trails, and Natural Areas, which provides the policy framework for King County’s acquisition, development, stewardship, management, and funding of our 32,000-acre open space system. It’s a functional plan of the King County Comprehensive Plan and must be updated every six years. As part…
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Happy Duwamish Alive Day!
On October 19th we celebrated Duwamish Alive Day with events at North Green River Park and White Center Heights Park. For 13 years, Duwamish Alive Day has been a regional day of habitat restoration events organized by the Duwamish Alive Coalition whose collaborative efforts aim to improve the health of the Green-Duwamish Watershed. This year,…
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Notes from the field: Day of Caring Wrap-up
Today’s guest plogger is Charlie Wakenshaw from our Volunteer Program Last Friday, Sept 13, was United Way Day of Caring, a day we look forward to all year because it brings members of our community together to lend support for the public lands we all share. In partnership with the United Way of King County,…
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Compost. Recycle. Get your groove on (for free). Rinse. Repeat.
In just a few short days, the summer concert series kicks off at Marymoor Park, which means it’s time to refresh your playlist and plan some summer fun. Not enough dough to see every show? Then considering volunteering on the Marymoor Composting and Recycling Crew! Marymoor Composting and Recycling Crew volunteers help educate concert-goers about…
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Marymoor’s Waking Dream of Healthy Trees
Volunteers from Cirque du Soleil’s LUZIA installed mulch rings around 40 trees near the Willowmoor entrance to protect them from damage and drought this summer. Cirque staff have been enjoying the greenery, mountains, and occasional sunny days here in Washington. LUZIA will be wrapping their run at Marymoor this weekend and are headed to Denver next. We…
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Where does one go to get yelled at by frogs? Why, Frog Holler Forest, of course!
Frog Holler Forest is our newest park, a 60-acre forest on the southern part of Vashon Island. Frog Holler is actually the name of the neighborhood where the park is located, named as such for the chorus of tree frogs in the area. Acquired in December 2016 with the help of the Vashon Maury Island…
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Volunteer Campground Host opening at Tolt-MacDonald Park
Got an RV? Enjoy the outdoors? We have an opening at the beautiful Tolt-MacDonald Park in Carnation for a Volunteer Campground Host during the 2017 camping season. Starting March 1 through October 31, the campground host will reside at the park at a campsite that fits a personal RV. (Site includes electrical, water and sewer…
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Tree Planting with Two Rivers School
We are fortunate to have such an amazing array of partners who help us maintain our world-class parks, trails and open spaces. One such partner is the Two Rivers School from North Bend – they’ve been helping us plant native vegetation and remove invasive plants on our properties (in the area) for over ten years!…
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Check out the new interactive map that highlights 24 restoration projects around King County
Did you know that King County Parks acquires lands for both recreational and environmental conservation purposes? In 2015, King County Parks worked on a total of 24 restoration sites throughout the park system and planted over 25,000 native trees. The properties we acquire come in a variety of conditions. The majority of the sites are…
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Photo Diary: Tahoma School District forest ecology field trip at Ravensdale Park
In the past week, every 7th grader (120-190 students per day) in the Tahoma School District participated in a forest ecology field trip led by King County Parks staff. These young arborists spent the day rotating through three unique and interactive stations at Ravensdale Park and the Cemetery Reach Natural Area. At the first station, teachers…
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Volunteer with King County Parks this Sat., Nov. 7!
This Saturday, we have FOUR volunteer events happening in King County Parks and we want to see you there! Volunteers are an integral part of our parks system as they help maintain out stream corridors and urban forests by planting native trees and shrubs to improve the area’s wildlife and water quality. It’s a fun…
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Updates on Grand Ridge Trail
On Friday, King County Parks worked with Mountains to Sound Greenway staff as well as forty volunteers from Ernst and Young on some major updates on the Grand Ridge Coal Mine Interpretive Loop. The loop trail, including the area around the back country kiosk (pictured) was graveled, a rock curb delineating the kiosk area is…
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Upcoming Volunteer Events in King County Parks- Autumn 2015
Volunteering with King County Parks is a great way to give back to the community, learn tangible skills, satisfy service learning requirements and enjoy the outdoors! Families, groups and individuals are all invited to get involved with our volunteer program. Here are the upcoming volunteer events with King County Parks’ this coming autumn: Sept. 12…
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FREE CONCERTS?!?!?
Ha ha haaaaa. CLICK BAIT! Got you good. Really, they are free, you just have to volunteer. Besides, wouldn’t you feel better listening to your favorite band while keeping your favorite park from getting grubby? Sure. So here are the shows we could use some extra help at: R-5 | Aug. 14 107.7 Summer Camp | Aug.…
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For Those of You Feeling Like You Need to Earn Your Way
We still have some openings for our Recycling Crew at the A.R. Rahman show on Monday. Give nature a helping hand AND hear one of the most awesome Bollywood producers for free(ish). This is what they call a win-win people.
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National Trails Day – Kind of a Big Deal
This is more than likely what the scene will look like tomorrow across this humble little park system. So if you aren’t already sold, know this, pictures can possibly take your soul but they can never truly convey the full amount of awesome in a given moment. We promise you a minimum of 3x more…
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Soaring Eagle gets what it deserves – teenagers
WTA (Washington Trails Association) and King County Parks hosted a volunteer event at Soaring Eagle. A little trail maintenance. Much needed dirty work for a trail system that admittedly can get very wet. That trail had NO IDEA what was in store for it. Teenagers. A murder of them. From the Big Picture School in…
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‘Merica – Americorps lends KC Parks a hand
Americorps brought their hard work ethic and national pride to the slopes of the Issaquah Highlands. They went all Michael Bay on the Scot’s Broom (don’t bother correcting my grammar – look it up). Anywayyyyy, big shout out to the crew and our new volunteer coordinator for getting rid of pure invasive evil.
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O Grady Natural Area + WTA =’s more trail
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Let’s add some mileage to Grand Ridge with WTA
Washington Trails Association (WTA) is coming out to help build two more miles of trail at Grand Ridge, and let’s be honest, this network of trails wouldn’t exist without their massive amounts of sweat equity. Seriously – you see a WTA member thank them for their support. Hugging them is just dangerous, they’re always carrying…
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Trail work at Soaring Eagle Park
Big thanks to Mountains to Sound, volunteers and KC staff for leading in some much needed trail maintenance and building at the park this last Saturday.
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Microsoft – Intern Day of Caring
Microsoft was kind enough to loan their interns, and they were out in force in King County Parks yesterday. Parksmonkey made it around to document their work at Tanner Landing, Redmond Ridge and along the Burke-Gilman Trail. Enjoy, and for more photos hit up our Flickr feed.
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Completing the cycle of a living Christmas tree
We survived the holiday season and we’re rounding the corner to spring, which means prime planting time for some awesome habitat restoration! A number of upcoming volunteer planting work parties has got us especially excited because we have a large donation of native plants and trees coming our way from Swansons Nursery. King County Parks…
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Join us this Saturday for a volunteer work-party!
Could there be any better place to spend a few hours this Saturday for a volunteer work-party-extravaganza in celebration of National Public Lands Day? This is it! Please join us on National Public Lands Day for a special volunteer work-party in partnership with Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust and REI Seattle. National Public Lands Day…
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Kid Hiker is exploring rain or shine!
Meet Kid Hiker! Favorite Place to Hike: Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park Favorite Snack: Carrots dipped in peanut butter Favorite Band: Caspar Babypants Frequently Quoted Saying: “Look what I found!” The fall season is the perfect time to explore ‘your big backyard’ as a family and keep your kid hiker’s motivation ever-growing for a life-long…
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It’s a birthday-volunteer-parky-park-mega-party-jamboree-madness-palooza-shindig!
This Saturday, it’s the birthday party of the year and you’re invited! While we can’t promise that anyone is going to jump out of a giant birthday cake, we can promise that you, your family and friends will have a blast celebrating 75 years of awesome with King County Parks. And there’s no better place…