Feature: Volunteer Appreciation - It's Global Volunteer Month and We're Celebrating YOU!

Volunteer Appreciation

April is Global Volunteer Month and we're celebrating YOU - our dedicated volunteers! In 2024, you increased your volunteer service by 6,400 volunteer hours for a total of 32,030.49 hours! AMAZING!

Those numbers alone may not mean much, but when you start thinking about what they represent - all the helping hands tackling invasive species removal across our parks and conservation areas, maintaining our trails, planting native trees and plants, tending to our beautiful gardens, welcoming and assisting visitors, providing tours for school groups, demonstrating 19th century farm life, caring for our many animals, and working to ensure the success of our many programs and special events - it means a whole lot. Put simply, MetroParks could not do all that we do without you, our volunteers. YOU are the helping hands, the warm hearts, the welcoming smile, and indeed the spirit of MetroParks. Read about all the great work you did in 2024 in this year's Volunteer Impact Report and take a few minutes to review your individual and volunteer group impact in your Volunteer Resume and your User Group Resume on Get Connected. 

Thank you so much for continuing to choose to give your time, your talents, your skills, and your helping hands in support of our mission. We hope that we are honoring your generous gifts with the type of work we are giving you to do - developing high-quality, meaningful volunteer opportunities that make a difference - and we hope that we are always letting you know in a variety of ways how much we appreciate YOU!

To show our appreciation, we are sending thank you cards to those dedicated volunteers who served 10 or more hours with us in 2024. Those with 25 hours or more will also receive a personalized note from their staff lead in their thank you card AND their 2025 volunteer discount card, good for 15%, 30%, or 50% of MetroParks programs and routine rentals all year long. 

You'll also see a variety of posts across MetroParks social media and on the website recognizing the incredible work you, our dedicated volunteers do!

For those volunteers joining us at an in-person Adopt-A-Park projects Saturday, April 26th, we'll be giving out Adopt-A-Park tote bags and our Love the Earth seed balls as a thank you for your generous service. Learn more in April Volunteer Opportunities and sign up to join us!

And, in case you missed it - last month we shared our new Volunteer Tributes. We are GROWING our Volunteer Incentive Program (VIP) this year to show our GROWING appreciation for your dedicated service. Now, volunteers with 2,000 or more volunteer hours with us can be recognized for their dedicated long-term service to MetroParks with a volunteer tribute item. Here are the available tributes:

• *2,000 volunteer hours - Tree Planted with Plaque (with 10-year endowment)
• *3,000 volunteer hours - Trail Naming with Plaque (with 5-year endowment)
• *5,000 volunteer hours - Shelter Naming with Plaque (with 10-year endowment)

Tribute can be made in honor of or in memory of volunteers who have provided dedicated long-term service to Five Rivers MetroParks. Requests can be made by the volunteer, their family member, another MetroParks volunteer, a MetroParks staff member, or a member of the Volunteer Services team. Requests can be made through the VIP Item Request Form available on Get Connected or by contacting Volunteer Services. 

*Note: All tribute items will be endowed for a specific period of time and will be labeled with the volunteer's name, dates of volunteer service, and a thank you message. Limit 1 tribute item per volunteer.

Learn more about our new volunteer tributes and/or request your VIP items - shirts, hats, sweatshirt, milestone service pins, and now tribute items in our VIP Item Request Form here and on Get Connected. 

Thank you for volunteering with us!

Volunteer Services

Volunteer Services is available if you have questions or need assistance in signing up.

Contact us at volunteer.services@metroparks.org or #937-275-7275.

Your Volunteer Services Team (from left to right)

Allie 

Parks & Conservation # (937) 274-3176

Amanda

Ambassador & Special Events, Interim Administration # (937) 277-4109

Yvonne

Outdoor Connections Programming # (937) 277-4147

Jenny

Human Resources Manager of Volunteer Services

Interim: Animal Care & Animal Programming and Court Appointed Volunteer Service # (937) 567-1413