The beauty and accessibility of California public lands is easy to take for granted, but they don’t stay that way on their own. Since government budgets and employees are perpetually overloaded, one saving grace keeps these beloved parks safe and fun for the public while preserving wildlife habitat for the critters: volunteers.
V-O-Cal is dedicated to bolstering that all-essential volunteer workforce. V-O-Cal, Volunteers for Outdoor California, is a nonprofit that galvanizes an impressively diverse array of volunteers to tackle large-scale trail maintenance, construction, and habitat restoration projects that would otherwise languish. Not ones to reinvent the wheel, V-O-Cal works with public agencies and other non-profits that share their mission of land restoration and maintenance, ensuring that their projects are effective while tailoring their approach to complement other efforts.
Using a rigorous planning process to organize and supervise each project, requiring hundreds of hours, V-O-Cal doesn’t miss a detail. And there are a lot of details! Between 125-150 volunteers camp out an entire weekend and take on projects throughout a region of parks, rather than sticking to just one.
Hot meals are provided throughout each project, providing volunteer opportunities for cooks and camp helpers who might not be interested in the hard and dirty work of building a trail or replanting a wetland.
V-O-Cal is based in Redwood City and was founded in 2006. Their concept is modeled after a similar organization in Colorado.
Find out more at the V-O-Cal website.
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