Volunteering is a great American tradition especially valued by the National Park Service. Volunteers play an important role in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. You can help the parks in a variety of areas from enhancing visitor services to sharing your specialized expertise to make the parks a better place.

“When a VIP agrees to share his talents, skills and interests with the National Park Service, he is paying us one of the highest compliments possible by offering a most valued possession – his time.”
-George B. Hartzog, Jr.

Courage to Change Receives Award For Outstanding Volunteer Service
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks extend their congratulations to Courage to Change, recipients of the Pacific West Region Hartzog Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service by a group. The Hartzog award was created by George and Helen Hartzog to honor volunteers’ hard work, draw attention to their vast skills and contributions, and to stimulate development of innovative projects and volunteer involvement.

Courage to Change is a private high school in Exeter, CA focused on providing gang entrenched youth with the opportunity for change. Courage to Change joined the Volunteer-In-Parks program at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in 2009. Within a single year, cadets donated more than 1,800 volunteer hours and contributed to numerous park projects. Some of the group’s accomplishments include:

• Eliminated all of the graffiti from the Foothills area of the park using biodegradable, citrus-based solvent
• Refurbished the Potwisha amphitheater and repaired, sanded and repainted the every picnic table in the campground
• Placed 200 erosion-control wattles with 1000 wood stakes to repair storm damage during the restoration of Halstead Meadow.
• Constructed 16 large propagation frames, installed shade netting and transplanted thousands of seedlings in the foothills native plant greenhouse.
• Streamlined the logistics and traffic management at the Krebs Wilderness dedication.  

Thank you, Courage to Change, for your continuing contribution to your local National Parks.  

Watch a slideshow on Courage To Change (MS Powerpoint, 5.5MB)