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.
Here is what you could do:
In the gardens, the main tasks are making sure volunteers are weeding the right plants and that everyone is wearing a life vest and generally being safe if walking 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 after signing up for a shift. We can usually meetup 20 minutes or so before the group arrives to go over the current needs in the gardens.
OR (You don't need to do both)
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:
- Wednesday July 8th 5:00 to 8:30 - Mathmatica at the Wild Mile
- Group of 15 or so doing both gardening and kayaking
- Long-time volunteer, Nikki, will be handling the on water portion since this will be her co-workers coming out.
- Really, we are just using this as an excuse to get a bunch of gardening volunteers out and do some much needed weeding and trimming.
- Thursday July 9th 8:30 to Noon - Hikma at the Wild Mile
- Group of at most 20 doing both gardening and kayaking
- Another group where the kayaking portion is probably taken car of, but it's nice to get volunteers out in the gardens before the next wave of bad weather rolls through.
- Saturday July 11th 9:00 to Noon - Ovative Group at the Wild Mile
- Around 20 doing both gardening and kayaking
- Another group where the kayaking portion is probably taken car of, but it's nice to get volunteers out in the gardens to trim and weed and make sure the new volunteers aren't weeding the wrong plants.
Please note that most 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. If not, setting up some kayaks or boots for gardening might be helpful during that time, or just feel free to show up 30 minutes or so after the start time.
