Cashier/Information Assistant Volunteer

Discover Your Northwest is seeking a cashier/information assistant for the educational sales area at Sunrise. DYN is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the discovery of northwest public lands, to enriching the experience of visitors, and to encouraging stewardship of these special places today and for generations to come.

Cashier/information assistant responsibilties include providing excellent customer service, assisting visitors with resource information, and cashiering. The position is available from late June until early September. Applicants should expect to work weekends and holidays. Retail experience and a background in customer service are preferred.

Send resumés to:
Mount Rainier National Park
Discover Your Northwest
55210 238th Ave. East
Ashford, WA 98304

A Friend of the Park

Late on Sunday February 24th, I received word that a long-time volunteer at Mount Rainier National Park, Jeanne Friend, had passed away. Due to illness, it's taken me a week to write this remembrance, but that has also given me a lot of time to think about what Jeanne meant to Mount Rainier, and about the many ways she contributed to this place that will have long, lasting, and positive effects.

With declining health, Jeanne last contributed hours as a volunteer in 2009 -- but that was her 27th year on our volunteer roles. I pulled her folder out of our archives and it's three quarters of an inch thick with time sheets, e-mails, volunteer agreements, photographs, and letters, many of them hand-written. Here's a little note with a time sheet reading "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family." Here's another from 2005, at the beginning of a new project, reading "Here I am back again! The Mountain keeps calling."

For most of her volunteer career, Jeanne's passion was with the revegetation program. She was actively involved with a Boy Scout troup in Everett, starting with restoration of the old Paradise Campground in 1983, and her folder includes photos of teams working on other restoration projects above Paradise from 1984 through 1997. Many of the still-healing patches in the meadows that you'll see during the summer, where errant boots created social trails and volunteer crews repaired them, were her doing, and that of her teams. She also served as a "Paradise Ranger Assistant" under Ranger John Madden, patrolling trails and helping in the ranger station full time from 1997 to 2000 and part-time in 2001 during the summer. In later years, she helped with the park library and curatorial collection, and conducted research into the history of Mount Rainier National Park alongside Bob McIntyre, Jr.

She has a total of 7,457.5 hours of time logged in our database. Some of her last time sheets, totaling eight or nine hours a month, include apologies for not turning in more time, and promises to try to do better.

In 2003, Mount Rainier National Park created a new award category for volunteers, called the Superintendent's Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service. Only a handful of individuals have received this most prestigious honor over the years; Jeanne was one of the first. What follows is the full text of the citation on her award:

Jeanne Friend is a Mount Rainier treasure. She came here as a widow with three teenage sons, camped at Cougar Rock, and began volunteering. In the beginning she did meadow revegetation, and when winter came she placed avalanche wands for the rangers. Ultimately, she gave every possible kind of support to the ranger operations at Paradise.

She made Mount Rainier her life for many years. Starting in May, she worked all hours, day and night. Officially, she has given 7,233 hours of servce to the Park over the course of 21 years. In fact, she often didn't report all the hours she worked. She routinely worked 10-hour days, and wouldn't go home at night if there was something that needed to be done.

Jeanne became a Gal Friday to John Madden and other rangers. New rangers at Paradise often learned the ropes from her: she knew what needed to be done, when it should be done, and where the equipment was to do it. She would anticipate jobs, have ready what was needed to do them, and then do them herself if necessary. This included directing traffic and shoveling snow from trails so visitors would stay off the meadows.

She was often the only person available during crises. In one instance she directed a helicopter landing; another time she was a great help in evacuating the Paradise Inn after a bomb scare.

She knows Paradise as few people do, and is a reference person on everything from flower indentification to geography and human history. She was a personal friend of Floyd Schmoe, Mount Rainier's first Park Naturalist, and she wrote a History of Paradise.

Jeanne is the quintessential Mount Rainier volunteer. She was not limited by any job description. She saw what needed to be done, and saw that it got done. Mount Rainier National Park is a better place for all of us because she was here.

Jeanne's work is now done, and her service is complete. But her spirit will linger here on the Mountain for many, many years, and we are all better for it. Rest in peace, Jeanne... and thank you.

Volunteers Pick It Up!

Mount Rainier's Volunteers teamed up with the Department of Transportation last fall to adopt the stretch of State Route 706 between Milepost 2 and Milepost 4. We have contracted with them to perform three litter patrols annually. Following our first pickup, the DoT posted signs acknowledging our service at both ends of the designated area. Look for them as you drive up to the Park!

It's time to start thinking about our next patrol which is slated for Saturday, April 20. The date was selected to coincide with Earth Day, April 22. Volunteer Coordinator Crow is looking for eight to ten "litter pickers" who can devote a couple of hours to help out. We will be staging at Tahoma Woods at 9 AM. Following a brief orientation, teams will be dispatched with bags and grabbers. If you would like to participate in this community service come rain or shine, please email Crow at Petrina_Vecchio@partner.nps.gov.

Volunteers contribute more than $1.6 million worth of work to Mount Rainier

From The News Tribune:

Volunteers contribute work "equal to the amount of time 150 seasonal employees would work during a typical summer. 'There’s no way we could afford to pay for that many people,' Bacher said. 'That (volunteer effort) is so important in these times when we are being asked to do more with less.'"

Click through to read the whole article.

2012 Report on the Eleanor and Raymond Wilson Charitable Trust

Mount Rainier National Park's volunteer program receives its funding from a variety of sources. For the past two years, the largest single source of that funding has been Washington's National Park Fund, a non-profit partner with the national parks of Washington state, which accepts donations large and small on their behalf. Any time we receive money from such donors, it's proper to submit a periodic report on how that money is being invested. I always enjoy writing such reports, because frankly, volunteerism is an exceptionally good investment by any criteria. Here's this year's report on WNPF's contributions. Go to their website for more information about other great projects they're supporting, and to learn how you can help.

Washington’s National Park Fund
Eleanor and Raymond Wilson Charitable Trust

Background

In 2010, Mount Rainier National Park received a donation of $350,000 from the estate of Eleanor and Raymond Wilson through Washington’s National Park Fund. $250,000 of that donation was targeted specifically to the park’s volunteer program, to be distributed at a rate of $50,000 per year for five years. Mount Rainier received $50,000 each for fiscal years 2011 and 2012.

Funding

The Wilson Trust has, for two years, provided about three quarters of the general project funding to support Mount Rainier National Park’s volunteer program. Additional obligated National Park Service (ONPS) funding pays the salary of the Volunteer and Outreach Program Manager, a GS-11 full-time position, whose responsibilities are divided between the volunteer program and community outreach.

Source	2011		2012
WNPF Wilson Trust	$50,000		$50,000
ONPS VIP Funds	$17,933		$17,069
VIP Special Project Funding	$10,000		$5,000
Total	$77,933		$72,069

The National Park Service sets aside funding for volunteer programs nationwide, and distributes that funding through its regional offices to parks proportional to the number of volunteers and volunteer hours that each park reports. The Pacific West Region bases that distribution on a three-year average. It also sets aside part of its funding to support special projects. Mount Rainier has been fortunate to receive special project funding on several occasions, including $2,000 to support “Keep Wildlife Wild” efforts and $8,000 to support a partnership with the Boy Scouts of America in 2011, and $5,000 to enhance our “Meadow Rover” program in 2012.

Funds that are not targeted to a specific project are distributed by the Volunteer Program Manager in ways intended to maximize their effectiveness according to two goals:

1. Increasing the number, diversity, and quality of opportunities for members of the public to engage in the stewardship of their National Park; and
2. Increasing the ability of park staff to accomplish their dual mission of protecting natural resources and serving the public.

In most cases, park programs are able to contribute resources of their own to supplement those provided by the volunteer program. For example, they may use base funding to pay for a volunteer’s housing, or they may pay for the tools and vehicles used by a volunteer out of their own accounts.  These additional contributions toward volunteer efforts are not captured here.

Expenses

Volunteer program funds may be used for supplies, transportation, uniforms, or tools. Some long-term volunteers receive a small per diem for basic living expenses. Non-ONPS funds can be used to pay for volunteer housing.

Mount Rainier also traditionally invests a significant portion of its volunteer funding to support internship positions hired through organizations like the StudentConservation Association and Geologic Society of America. These positions are usually filled by college-age youth and are an investment in our future workforce; many of them go on to secure seasonal or permanent positions with the National Park Service. In addition, some of the interns we hire work within the volunteer program itself, with duties including volunteer recruitment, training, and supervision.

Item	2011	2012	Notes
SCA Interns	$24,500	$29,150	Education intern (12 weeks, 2012 only); Citizen Science intern (12 weeks); Wilderness intern (12 weeks); Trails intern (16 weeks); VIP Coordinator (24 weeks)
Volunteer housing	$8,444	$8,464	Housing for long-term volunteers
Per Diem	$7,210	$6,420	Living expenses for long-term volunteers, such as campground hosts, mountaineering volunteers, and emergency roadside assistance volunteers
Vehicle rentals	$5,300	$5,300	Vehicles for Emergency Roadside Assistance, Roadside Cleanup, and Geoscience Teachers-in-Parks volunteers
Geologist-in-Parks interns	$13,500	$4,750	Five 12-week interpretation interns in 2011, two in 2012
Teacher-Ranger-Teachers		$4,750	Reimbursements for ten interns ranging from 4-10 weeks
Supplies and field gear	$4,622	$5,840	Waders, nets, notebooks, GPS, altimeters, and guide books for citizen science and geology volunteers; motor oil and tools for emergency roadside assistance volunteers; all-weather jackets for climbing volunteers
Uniform items	$4,181	$1,791	Uniform shirts, hats, vests, jackets, and nametags
Travel and Training	$1,013		Advanced Volunteer Program Training attendance
Background checks	$364	$401	For volunteers working on networked computers
Award items		$250	Incentive awards for Meadow Rover volunteers
Total	$68,017	$67,116	Not including ONPS or targeted special project funding

Results

The Wilson Trust funds arrived at a fortuitous time, when other sources of funding (especially ONPS funds) were increasingly in demand for other purposes and fewer and fewer dollars were left over to support volunteers. WNPF funds have allowed us to sustain a robust volunteer program during a time of fiscal challenge.

	2011	2012
Number of volunteers	1,728	1,804
Volunteer hours	74,504	74,615

Key Accomplishments

• In partnership with the Washington TrailsAssociation, Student Conservation Association, and Mount Rainier National ParkAssociates, volunteers helped rebuild and reopen the Glacier Basin Trail in 2011, large portions of which were obliterated by floods in November 2006. In 2012, they turned to other projects throughout the park, 679 of them turning in 13,136 hours of service.
• One hundred forty “Meadow Rovers” spent 7,595 hours patrolling meadows above Paradise and Sunrise, educating tens of thousands about the importance of staying on trails in those fragile subalpine environments. Twenty-one Wilderness Patrol volunteers turned in another 5,752 hours patrolling trails throughout the park.
• Two Emergency Roadside Assistance volunteers spent 1,323 hours patrolling the roads around Paradise, assisting dozens of stranded motorists and helping with numerous accidents and incidents. Five of Mount Rainier’s 15-person team of climbing rangers are now volunteers. Volunteers also contributed more than 2,300 hours in Search and Rescue events in 2012.
• Citizen Scientists now systematically survey amphibians, butterflies, and other wildlife species, monitoring trends influenced by climate change and other factors. 64 volunteers turned in 1,159 hours of service. Another 18 volunteers turned in 1,801 hours of time surveying glaciers and streambeds.
• Thirty-two Volunteers turned in 7,718 hours of service as interpretive naturalists in 2012, the equivalent of more than 15 paid seasonal employees for our visitor centers and school education programs that we would not have been able to afford.
• We worked with 38 active community groups in 2012, including youth from the Student Conservation Association (5,112 hours), Central Washington Field School (4,000 hours), the Boy Scouts of America (1,989 hours), The Evergreen State College (1,600 hours), MEAD Alternative High School (483 hours), and the Tokyo-based Japan Volunteers-in-Parks Association (880 hours). Members of the Washington Trails Association turned in 5,339 hours; the Mount Rainier National Park Associates accumulated 977; and the Washington SkiTouring Club, 643.
• Volunteers worked under at least 84 different position descriptions in 2012.

The Role of Washington’s National Park Fund and the Wilson Trust

Raymond and Eleanor Wilson Charitable Trust donations have covered 74% of the general operating funds of Mount Rainier National Park’s volunteer program for the past two years, not counting special project funding and obligated National Park Service funds. These funds pay for interns who help us to manage our volunteer program and extend our capacity to work with members of our community, especially in the areas of trail maintenance, interpretation, citizen science, and the “Meadow Rover” program. They pay for vehicles and supplies that allow us to offer emergency roadside assistance, and emergency response on the upper slopes of Mount Rainier. They pay for housing and per diem that allows volunteers to participate not just for a day or two at a time, but on extended assignments lasting weeks or months.

Most importantly, we are meeting our program’s goals. We are engaging more and more people in more and more projects at Mount Rainier, working with them as partners and advocates in the stewardship of their National Park. We are protecting our resources and serving our visitors in ways we couldn’t hope to without the help of volunteers. This year’s 74,615 volunteer hours are the equivalent efforts of more than 149 seasonal employees and $1.6 million in salaries and benefits. This is a tremendous return on our investment.

The numbers speak for themselves, but there is no better way to assess the positive influence of the Wilson Charitable Trust than to visit a volunteer group in action: rebuilding a washed-out trail with the Washington Trails Association or Student Conservation Association at Comet Falls, planting native plants with a school group at Sunrise, or surveying frogs and salamanders in a wilderness lake with a citizen science team. We are making connections. We are investing in the future of our Park and our community. We are making a difference.

Photographs from the 2012 season may be seen on our website at http://tinyurl.com/MORA2012VIPs.

Thoughts on this year's volunteer statistics

• Number of volunteers have increased from 1,728 to 1,804.
• Total volunteer hours increased from 74,504 hours to 74,615 (worth $1.6 million!).
• In most cases, volunteer hours increased. The one major exception was that we had a huge number of hours (11,148) logged by Washington Conservation Corps last year and a much smaller number (1,200) this year. Take out WCC and the remaining hours increased dramatically, from 63,356 to 73,415.

Some highlights:

• Archeology: Up from 3,348 to 5,654 due to increased participation by Central Washington University Field School.
• Campground Maintenance: Up from 203 to 1,139 due to increased numbers of volunteers working on the Longmire Campground.
• Citizen Science: Up from 383 to 947, with participation in both amphibian surveys and butterfly surveys. Wildlife survey volunteer numbers were also up.
• Climbing Rangers: Up from 1,436 to 3,622.
• Curatorial Assistants: Up from 3,325 to 4,253.
• Emergency Roadside Assistance: Up from 685 to 1,323.
• Interpretation: Up from 4,568 to 7,718.
• "Maintenance Response": Down from 828 to 0, due to the retirement of Clyde and Lois Ambacher. (We'd still love to find someone new to fill this position!)
• Meadow Rovers: Up from 6,622 to 7,595.
• Revegetation: Down from 2,391 to 1,463.
• Search and Rescue: Up from 1,254 to 2,301.
• Trails: Down from 22,393 to 13,136, mostly due to reduced hours by WCC.
• Transportation Studies: Down from 3,416 to 0 due to completion of this one-year project.

 Our partnerships remain vital:

• 5,112 hours were contributed by Student Conservation Association (down from 8,203 last year due to 4 fewer individual SCA interns and one fewer community crew).
• Washington Trails Association contributed 5,339 hours and 388 volunteers (down from 448 volunteers last year).
• The Geologists-in-Parks (and Geoscience Teachers in Parks) program contributed 5,270 hours and 11 people.
• The Teacher-Ranger-Teacher program contributed 1,634 hours and 10 people.
• The Mount Rainier National Park Associates turned in 977 hours.
• Evergreen State College contributed 1,600 hours, including 3 full-time volunteers and 28 class members.
• Boy Scouts contributed a total of 1,989 hours and 151 people.
• All told, we have 38 active community groups that we work with in addition to our individual volunteers.

Annual Activity and Expense Report

Department of the Interior
National Park Service
Volunteers In Parks

Annual Activity and Expense Report
Mount Rainier National Park
Report Date: Nov 2, 2012
Fiscal Year: 2012

______________________________________________________________________________
Volunteer Coordinator and Park Information
______________________________________________________________________________

Total Volunteers: 1,804
Alpha Code: MORA
VIP Coordinator: Kevin Bacher
VIP Coordinator Phone: 360-569-2211
Coordinator Email: kevin_bacher@nps.gov

______________________________________________________________________________
Volunteer hours by category:
______________________________________________________________________________

Administration: 254.50
Campground Host: 2,189.50
Cultural Resource Management: 9,963.00
General Management: 65.00
Interpretation: 19,300.00
Maintenance: 2,845.00
Natural Resource Management: 10,149.00
Protection/Operations/Law Enforcement: 29,032.00
Training: 817.00

[Total hours: 74,615.00]

______________________________________________________________________________
Program costs by category:
______________________________________________________________________________

Housing: $ 10,565.00
Meals: $ 3,184.00
Recognition/Award: $ 250.00
Supplies: $ 8,072.00
Training: $ 0.00
Transportation: $ 1,515.00
Uniforms: $ 5,644.00

[Total costs: $ 29,230.00]

______________________________________________________________________________
Volunteer Program Highlight
______________________________________________________________________________

With the exception of one program that had an unusually high number of hours last year, volunteer participation increased in almost every category in 2012. Most notably, participation in our Meadow Rover program grew significantly with the help of volunteer Meadow Rover managers. Large numbers of volunteers participated in numerous SARs during the summer. Our partnerships with the Washington Trails Association and others continued to be robust. Boy Scout participation increased. We hosted 11 Geologist-in-Parks or Geoscience-Teachers-in-Parks; 10 Teacher-Ranger-Teachers; and 12 international volunteers. We worked with 7 SCA interns and two 10-person crews, as well as 3 interns from Evergreen State College.

______________________________________________________________________________
Training
______________________________________________________________________________

How many people at the park require VIP Program Management Training: 20

______________________________________________________________________________
Optional Information Regarding Housing VIPs and Campground Hosts
______________________________________________________________________________

Number of Campground Hosts: 8
Number of VIPs housed in Permanent Structures: 43
Number of VIPs housed in Trailers: 0
Trailer Pads for Volunteers: 5

______________________________________________________________________________
Other Information
______________________________________________________________________________

Number of SCAs: 27
SCA Hours: 5,112
Number of Artists in Parks: 0
Artist in Parks Hours: 0
Number of International VIPs: 11
International VIPS Hours: 1,160
Number of Volunteer Senior Ranger Corps: 0
Volunteer Senior Ranger Corps Hours: 0
Number of Boy Scouts: 151
Boy Scout Hours: 1,989
Number of Girls Scouts: 0
Girl Scout Hours: 0
Number of Wounded Warriors: 0
Wounded Warriors Hours: 0

Looking for winter volunteer interpreters!

Winter Information Desk Help: Mount Rainier's interpretive program keeps the Longmire Museum staffed daily year round. Managing this effectively can be difficult during the busy winter weekend mornings when visitors are checking in to snow camp or climb the mountain. We are looking for volunteers to help us serve the visiting public by staffing the Longmire museum desk from 9 a.m. to 12 noon along with a uniformed staff person on Saturdays/Sundays and holidays. The volunteer would assist visitors seeking basic information about the park while the uniformed staff person issued permits. Overnight accommodations may be available. For more information contact West District Interpreter Lee Snook at 360-569-6576 or Lee_Snook@nps.gov.

Meadow Rovers of the Year

Paradise Interpreter Curt Jacquot reports that "we have finalized our choices for Meadow Rover of the year awards. We are recognizing six rovers of the year and two special mention rovers. Rovers are selected by the rover coordinators and supervisors. Here they are:

Meadow Rovers of 2012:

Barb Crowell, Dave Krawchuck, Judy Kennedy, Ed Hunds, Karen Overturf, Chrisopher Provencer.

Special mention: Kelly Walsh, Gary Ouelette Meadow Rovers of the year are chosen based on their amount of service, quality of service, mentorship, and innovation of service delivery. Meadow rovers of the year are awarded a choice of a walk with a park scientist or a lunch with a park administrator."

Congratulations to all of these outstanding Rovers!

Survey volunteers still needed

Our need for a volunteer to help with survey projects, as described in the previous post, has been extended. If you're interested in getting out in the semi-wilds of Mount Rainier National Park's frontcountry and helping with a project for a day, or part of a day, or two, please give Lisa Turecek,  our Chief of Maintenance, a call at 360-569-6712. No prior experience is necessary.

Thanks!