Urban Rivers is often joined by large volunteer groups, usually at the Wild Mile. Sometimes these groups are from fellow nonprofits and sometimes from companies organizing volunteer days for their employees. When the groups want to divide up, with some volunteers helping pick up litter on kayaks and others helping in the gardens simultaneously, it's difficult for Urban Rivers staff to assist both groups at once. That's where regular Urban Rivers volunteers could be really helpful.
We are looking for volunteers who either have significant experience in the gardens or on kayaks.
In the gardens, the main tasks would be making sure volunteers are pulling the things that are actually weeds and that everyone is wearing a life vest and generally being safe if on the gardens. It would be helpful if you already have a pretty good eye for our weeds, but if you want to do this and are still inexperienced, just email stephen@urbanriv.org and you can set up a time to learn.
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On the kayaks, the main tasks would be making sure people are staying safe, answering questions, and getting people back around when they should be. It would be helpful if you've spent a lot of time out there volunteering for kayak clean-ups before. Ideally, you'd have taken one of the kayak rescue classes, but that's not required.
Here are the up coming volunteer days that we could use help with:
Tuesday September 2nd 1-4 PM - Northwestern University Center for Water Research, and Science Policy Outreach Taskforce (SPOT)
Wednesday September 3rd 1-3:30 PM - Allstate
Thursday September 4th 1-3:30 PM - Holland & Knight
Thursday September 18th 1-4 PM - Leapfrog
Please note that all of these volunteer days start with a tour of the Wild Mile. If you want to attend that tour, you are more than welcome to, but if not, feel free to show up 30 minutes or so after the start time.
