Seeking Volunteers for Park Day Projects

Date: March 7, 2015

National Park Service  News Release

For Immediate Release –  March 6, 2015

Contacts Name:  ERIC CAMPBELL [phone]

Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park Seeking Volunteers for "Park Day" Projects

Middletown, VA ----- The National Park Service and the Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation are seeking volunteers to complete work projects being planned for "Park Day" on Saturday, March 28^th. This annual hands-on preservation event, created and sponsored by the Civil War Trust, brings history enthusiasts nationwide together in an effort to help keep our heritage not only preserved, but pristine. Started in 1996, battlefields and historic sites across the country take part in Park Day, in order to complete maintenance projects large and small.

At Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park, both the National Park Service and the Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation (CCBF) are organizing different maintenance projects on their properties. These projects will both preserve historic resources and properly prepare them for the upcoming visitor season.

The National Park Service will have volunteers perform a variety of tasks associated with the newly opened trail to the 8^th Vermont Monument. Work will include trail improvement, trash removal and fence work. Volunteers are being asked to bring work gloves, a shovel or rake and to wear sturdy work boots. Water and safety equipment will be provided by the park.The work project will last from 8:00 am to 12:00 pm.For planning purposes, prospective volunteers are being asked to pre-register by Saturday, March 21^st.For more information, or to register, call [phone] or email: e-mail us

Volunteers will gather at the Visitor Contact Station (7712 Main Street, Middletown, VA) at 8:00 am on Saturday, March 28^th and then carpool to the project site.Following the work project, the National Park Service will offer a ranger program on the role of the 8^th Vermont Regiment at Cedar Creek.

The Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation's Park Day projects include trail maintenance along the 19th Corps trenches, fence repairs, maintenance and trash pickup around the Heater House property and other items as needed.Volunteers are asked to bring gloves

Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park and its partners are currently in the process of planning new trails in the park, along with other visitor infrastructure, such as signage and interpretive waysides.These projects will thus open up preserved tracts of land within the park that have previously been inaccessible to visitors."Park Day is a wonderful opportunity for local citizens, history enthusiasts and supporters of our national parks, to take an active part in preserving the historic resources of Cedar Creek and Belle Grove and to make them more accessible to the public," according to Site Manager Amy Bracewell."Both the National Park Service and the Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation welcome everyone who would like to volunteer and help take care of the national park in their own back yard."

For more information about the park, call [phone] or see: www.nps.gov/cebe

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About Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park:

Created on December 19, 2002, Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park encompasses approximately 3,700 acres across three counties and includes the key partner sites of Belle Grove Plantation (owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and managed by Belle Grove, Inc.), Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation, Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, and a developing Shenandoah County Park. The partner sites continue to be owned and operated independently.

The park commemorates a nationally significant Civil War landscape and antebellum plantation by sharing the story of Shenandoah Valley history from early settlement through the Civil War and beyond. The park is also a focal point of the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields National Historic District, a National Heritage Area.

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