The Tradition of Volunteering

An internship with the U.S. Forest Service offers volunteers an opportunity to work outside, gain experience and provide vital services for the sustainability of our national forests. Volunteers from all over the country and even the world convene to work side by side at the Bonners Ferry Ranger District.

One of the Bonners Ferry volunteers, college student Leandra Sherrer, hails from Miami, Florida. She works both out in the field as well as in the office. Sherrer first volunteered last year under the organization Mobilizing Green and Bridging Cultures, who recruited her and other from a non-profit where she works in Florida that teaches inner city youth about nature and agriculture.

“It’s awesome being here from Florida. Last year, I planted trees the first week we were here. We also visited the Kalispel tribe and learned about their sturgeon restoration,” she said.

Sherrer is part of the Trails and Recreation crew with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The department oversees the Forest Service.

This year, Sherrer, an environmental science major, is working more closely with her career goals. She leads camp groups in smaller, restorative volunteer projects, assists with field surveys and helps with grant writing. “That was my goal – to work with different groups,” she said.

The Forest Service has always relied on volunteers to help preserve national lands. There are 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which include 193 million acres in 44 states plus Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Bonners Ferry is one of more than 600 ranger districts under the Forest Service with Sandpoint and Priest River close by. The Bonners Ferry volunteer program has been in place since 1976 and began shortly after the Volunteers in the National Forest Act of 1972 was passed in recognition of individuals who wanted to provide community service to the national forests.

Volunteer service projects include: trail construction and maintenance, operation of campgrounds, management of vegetation and wildlife habitat and educational programs. Volunteer crews may also adopt a site or trail and look out maintenance and other needed projects.

One such project recently was hiking to Shorty Peak Lookout, a popular historic site. “We saw that there was damage and it needed repair,” Sherrer said.

On the Trails crew, projects might include improving campgrounds, removing brush and trees, trimming trails for easier access to bridges, smoothing the transitions from the road to the park and scrubbing picnic tables for visitor use, she said. Others might include removing unofficial camp sites that people have set up on their own.

According to Sherrer, there is no typical day for a volunteer whether they are working inside or out. “Every day is different,” she said.

Gabriel Bell, another college student, came from Austin, Texas because he had heard about the beauty of Northern Idaho. After working on his family’s ranch last year, he applied to volunteer for the Forest Service in Bonners Ferry. Bell works with the Infrastructure group cleaning trails.

Frequently, his group hikes eight to 10 miles to a destination point and works clearing brush. He says the areas they work are not that remote and are on the outskirts of Bonners Ferry.

“I want to come back. I fell in love with the scenery and the temperature the first day I was here. It’s very different from Texas,” Bell said. He already has plans to return next year to volunteer.

Just about anyone can volunteer, including minors with parental consent. The program also accepts international volunteers. The program is from mid-May to late September, but the commitment can be for the entire season, a couple of months or a week-long camp. Volunteers are trained in safety and for their assigned jobs. Some housing is available through the Forest Service, but volunteers should ask about it early on. Otherwise, they must find their own housing; it’s not automatically provided.

For Sherrer, it’s the work and the people she gets to meet that make the program worthwhile.

“There’s so many different projects. You get away from your normal routine. Even in the office, you feel like you’ve helped to do something,” she said.

For more information about the Volunteer Program in the Bonners Ferry Ranger District, visit www.fs.usda.gov

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