The city's Open Space and Mountain Parks had 1,630 volunteers in 2022 who contributed a total of 18,184 hours of service.
2022 OSMP Impacts:
Active On-going OSMP Volunteer Programs 2022
Raptor and Bat Monitors – Spent many field hours out on the land counting and reporting on animal presence and behavior for our staff ecologists to use while managing land for these species.
Visitor Ambassador, Trail Ambassadors and Bike Ambassadors –135 volunteers shared with the public advice and safety recommendations for trail use and Natural Resource protection. As well as reported problems to staff such as down trees and fencing.
Natural Resource Stewardship groups doing invasive weed pulling work and dog poop pickups to protect our ecosystems and for native species resiliency.
Education Naturalists – leading school and community programs on specific topics while sharing their passion of OSMP.
Wellness Volunteers – including one yoga volunteer, accessible bike helpers and a new partnership working with Pathways program at Boulder Community Health where 3 of our volunteers worked to share nature as a healing environment for the community.
OSMP One-Day Volunteer Projects (ODVP) 2022
In 2022 our program offered Climate Action Projects which had an introduction to how certain restoration projects are directly linked to Climate Action and carbon sequestration. This effort was a direct implementation of the Master Plan. Climate Action ODVP were developed with workgroups and recruited outwardly on our OSMP webpage and in Count Me In Boulder, and will be reported to OSBT and in the OSMP 2022 Volunteer Report.
Trails offers community One-Day Volunteer Trail Projects, serving corporations and organizations, and 12 “Trail work Tuesdays” were a new offering and popular this season. This team also focused on closing undesignated trails system-wide with volunteer groups. Trails works closely with local special user groups ranging from BMA, FCC, VOC and BCC to name a couple. The Watershed School (Teens) joined trails for 4 days on climbing access trail restoration and learned a great deal on the importance of stewardship through service learning.
Requests for One-Day Volunteer Projects (ODVP) from businesses and organizations increased both from requests as well as from OSMP generated community-based public projects such as litter cleanups, seed collections. (Now also on agriculture lands, wetlands, and riparian areas.) In addition, several individuals made longer-term commitments to steward the land. Check out the most recent OSMP Volunteer Spotlight that features an exemplary OSMP volunteer quarterly.
OSMP Testimonials:
-
“I enjoy how grateful visitors are when you can provide them guidance on trails. It makes their experience more memorable and enjoyable. I feel they appreciate knowing there are knowledgeable and friendly "locals" ensuring everyone feels welcome on the OSMP trails.”
-
“Favorite moments were when we entered into rich dialog on interpretation programs and people expressed how excited they were to see the natural world (or some aspect of it) in a new and inspiring way.”
-
“I started volunteering with OSMP on the Bear team in 2007, because I love wildlife and I had seen many bears while hiking that year, and felt the need to educate to keep bears safe and give the public knowledge. OSMP staff has always been so supportive, so with their support and my love of educating kids, I became a volunteer naturalist in 2008 and my goal has always been to connect kids to nature. I feel at peace when I volunteer and I am appreciated by the children, teachers, families and OSMP. My love of hiking and nature led me to volunteer as a trail guide so that I could give back to the land that I appreciate so much. I like the connection with the community, and I could not do any of this without the amazing staff that have supported me for 15 years.”