Help keep our natural areas beautiful, get to know some great people, and have lots of fun! We rely on your support, and have opportunities for people of all ages and skill levels. Check the Volunteer Calendar for upcoming workdays.

1. Park Stewards – Do you love nature? Would you like to play an important role in caring for the natural areas in a park near you? Park Stewards will be trained to help implement natural areas management plans for our parks. This could include invasive species control, photo monitoring, seed collection/dispersal, and other natural areas management activities according to the interest of each volunteer.
   • Year-round, but very flexible time commitment
2. Native Flower Gardens– Parks and Recreation maintains three native flower beds at Gallagher Creek Park, Bear Creek Nature Park, and Marsh View Park.  These beds are beautiful, provide an easy place to collect native seed, and help people learn about the importance of native plants.
   • Volunteers will be responsible for upkeep and design of beds
   • April through October
3. Seed Collecting – Do you like to walk the Paint Creek Trail or stroll through Oakland Township parks? Would you like to learn to identify some native plants? If so, help us collect seeds of native prairie species to seed into our prairie and woodland restoration projects.
   • You can work individually or participate in planned seed collection events.
   • Everyone is welcome! We will train you to identify the species and provide collection supplies.
   • From June to September
4. Invasive tree and shrub removal – Help remove invasive shrubs such as autumn olive, buckthorn, privet, and multiflora rose in our parks.
   • We will train you to identify, cut, and treat invasive shrubs.
   • Some work is fairly easy and some work is demanding, often in rough terrain
   • Work days will be scheduled from July to February
5. Photo-monitoring – each year in late August and early September we take pictures at set points in our parks to keep track of changes from year to year. If you like to explore the parks and take pictures, this is for you!