Volunteers play a huge role in preserving the world renowned resources contained within our National Parks. Nature Corps volunteers have played a crucial role in implementing a variety of conservation projects, from restoring the giant sequoia groves in the Sierra Nevada to rehabilitating the rainforests of Hawaii.

An example of how volunteers make a difference:

At Sequoia National Park volunteers completed a historic project to protect the General Sherman Tree, the largest living organism on earth. This "crown jewel" of the park service system receives over 1 mil­lion visitors annually. Concerned that the tree and its surround­ing environs were being irreversibly damaged, the park service requested that The Nature Corps implement a crucial landscape plan to protect this magnificent resource.

After securing the technical assistance of twenty students from the Landscape Architecture Department at California Polytechnic State University, over 400 volunteers donated nearly 12,000 volunteer hours to install a landscape plan designed to protect the General Sherman and surrounding giant sequoia groves .

In the end, this donated project was valued at $400,000 and cost the National Park Service only $33,000 in materials.

Because of the lack of federal funding, this project would not have been undertaken were it not for the efforts of The Nature Corps and its dedicated volunteers.

The Nature Corps continues to provide new levels of support to the National Park Service. Since the program’s inception in 1987, the Corps' 3,500 volunteers have donated their labor on conservation pro­jects valued at over $3,000,000.

We invite you to be a part of this growing legacy of conservation.