Emergence of the necessary volunteer: senior park volunteers--working at their leisure.

Many years ago, while working as a seasonal park ranger, I had the memorable pleasure of meeting a couple of senior hikers. Almost every spring and fall weekend, Ben and Mary would show up--backpacks filled with brush clippers, a collapsible saw, a small shovel, a trail axe, and pulley and ropes. Just as faithfully, before heading off to hike the extensive trail system--with its water bars to repair, fallen trees to remove and the ever-growing trailside brush to clip--they would take a few minutes to visit with the park staff, discussing the trails that needed the most attention.

It was an unspoken secret that their knowledge of trail conditions was superior to ours. The small staff had no time for trails. Between maintaining picnic areas and campgrounds, cleaning toilets, collecting fees and staffing the park store, we had no available hours to attend to trail management. As Ben and Mary headed up the mountain, to our obvious envy, we would return to slapping another coat of stain on picnic tables that should have been replaced years earlier, unplugging toilets and repairing the ever-failing water system.

Ben, a retired physician, and his wife Mary were park volunteers before the volunteer idea had fully germinated--before we began to recognize, organize and coordinate them, and before we began to worry about things like liability. We didn't consider them our extended staff, nor did they see themselves as anything more than ordinary hikers. If it had occurred to us to categorize them, they would have been in a category by themselves; maybe even "hikers with a conscience," but never "volunteers." Ben and Mary were working at their leisure, continuing a valued tradition of public trail stewardship on Mt. Monadnock in southwestern New Hampshire.

Fifty years later, volunteerism in parks is no longer a curiosity--it is a necessity. The Bens and Marys number in the hundreds of thousands at uncounted parks all across America. They still work on trails, but they also do campground hosting, endless grass mowing, interpretive programs, visitor center staffing and help with park planning. Volunteerism has evolved since the early days of Ben and Mary; its contracts, insurance, inch-thick volunteer manuals, paid coordinators, and an emerging skepticism from higher ups about their growing "power." That power, the act of one segment of the public taking back some of the responsibility for their parks, represents a monumental step away from the "let-government-do-it" philosophy of the mid-20th century.

The wave of park volunteerism was neither professionally inspired or agency-ordained. In fact, it was often actively discouraged and continues to be resisted in some park systems. It happened as a natural outgrowth of burgeoning demands on parks with relatively static budgets. And seniors were always in the forefront.

At issue today is how the powerful force of volunteerism should be sustained and encouraged to grow for the benefit of America's public park systems. Volunteerism as recreation has been replaced by volunteerism as an extension of park management. In many parks, you cannot be an unsanctioned volunteer. You must be recognized and registered, your work must be approved in advance, and must often be part of a park plan.

Some volunteers get the benefit of insurance and workmen's compensation, or free-use privileges at their park. Volunteer accomplishments show up in the annual report--and rightfully so. But, has all this bureaucratization of volunteerism turned away the Bens and Marys, whose connection to the land never translated to a connection with the bureaucracy?

Coordinating volunteerism is like managing wilderness. Both have to be applied in moderation, because both have the potential to diminish the experience. The basic attraction of the wild is a feeling of freedom from regulation and regimentation. Wilderness volunteer organizations, because they combine both concepts, are probably our best models for "managing" volunteerism. Having been schooled in the necessity of recreation, we certainly know that senior volunteerism is neither pure altruism nor a second career. What it really is for many is necessary, healthful, recreation. Senior volunteerism is a feeling of being useful, of being valued in a society that places a premium on youth.

For many seniors (who often have the time and luxury to volunteer), the need to "give something back" is tangible and urgent. It is, quite literally, an act of thanksgiving for gifts received. Ben and Mary had a personal relationship with their mountain and its trails, and a need to nurture that relationship.

Suppose that one day they had hiked part way up the mountain to work on the Cascade Link trail, and felt an urge to go work on the sunnier Thoreau trail instead? They wouldn't have been where we expected them to be, doing what we expected them to do. But their day would have been better, more rewarding, and more likely to incubate more volunteer days. By following their urge, they would have enjoyed a day of real recreation. To have ignored it would have been a day of work.

It would be a shame if our management of volunteerism contained the seeds of its own collapse. Might our zeal for documentation, such as seemingly innocuous daily "volunteer reports," be something that some volunteers might find objectionable, leading to unwanted volunteer competition and unnecessary volunteer awards? Would a required report have diminished Ben's and Mary's day?

Documentation is important, but we could truly unleash the power of volunteerism if we focused on its rewards rather than just on its accomplishments. Because we are in the business of recreation, shouldn't the annual report include testimonials from the casual exit interviews with our volunteers? There are community service kinds of volunteerism where, hopefully, lives have been changed by the experience. What's more important: changed lives, or projects completed?

There are corporate adoption workdays in which the employer volunteers the employees for a day. What's more important: the picnic shelter they built, or the sense of community it generated? There's the local scout troop whose leader volunteered them for beach clean-up day. What's more important to report: the ton of litter picked up, or the youths who became activists for the environment?

But, there are few groups that can compete with seniors, in terms of exchanging a lifetime of skills and experience, for the feelings of satisfaction and contribution they bring home from the park. I'd like to think that the miles of trail that Ben and Mary improved are a distant second to the health and happiness those trails gave them.

There will always be those who choose not to support volunteerism. Their reasons are understandable: it complicates an already complex administrative life, it challenges standard operating procedures, it threatens the existing power structure, it lacks guidelines and while it may work elsewhere, "things are different here." But, like any fear, it is a fear of change and the unknown. The answer is to replace that fear with full knowledge of the real benefits of volunteerism: personal, social and cultural. The organizational and budgetary rewards are just nice extras that come with it.

Volunteerism is an exciting new way to manage parks--people working at their leisure. However, its real power comes not from numbers, but from being an incredibly diverse and necessary part of the spectrum of recreation opportunities found in parks. Afterall, the presence of senior volunteers like Ben and Mary is a pretty good indicator of a healthy park.

Will LaPage writes extensively on the ethics of park management and was the first recipient of NRPA's Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt Award for Excellence in Recreation and Park Research.