By Josey Gardner
As winter quickly turns to spring and the shocking amount of snow we’ve received finally melts and gives way to soft earth, life is starting to return to the Greenwich Audubon Center. Ice is retreating from ponds and rivers and the sounds of toads and frogs singing into the night is returning; hard and frozen ground is giving way to moist dirt and returning grass; the sun is beginning to make longer appearances during the day, and the temperature is slowly beginning to rise (though we won’t get too excited over this–we don’t want to jinx it). As spring begins to arrive, so do more opportunities to volunteer at the center and build community with each other and with the natural world.
The Greenwich Audubon Center’s new volunteer program manager, Kenneth Nalley, is ready and waiting at the helm to dive into various volunteering projects. Originally from Texas, Kenneth has been in Connecticut for a few months now and has survived his first Northeast winter. He has a background in parks and recreation as well as various community and volunteer projects, particularly focusing on access to the outdoors for underrepresented groups, such as LGBTQ+ populations.
Just in time for new projects, the Greenwich Audubon Center has launched its new volunteer program web page. Visit us online at https://www.audubon.org/greenwich/getinvolved/volunteer‑greenwichaudubon‑center to see all the ways you can help out in the coming weeks! You can also visit https://www.audubon.org/greenwich and then click the “Get involved” menu option to see our volunteer opportunities.
How can you help the Greenwich Audubon Center? There are volunteer opportunities for habitat management and trail stewardship–this includes things like posting signage, trimming and clearing trail pathways, removing invasive plants, and more. Staff at the Greenwich Audubon Center manages over 400 acres of land across Greenwich with habitat preservation as the main goal. Volunteering with that management is a great way to ensure that habitat preservation in your community continues to thrive, and that birds and other wildlife have a place to call home and a stable environment to search for food. Additionally, preventing further habitat loss in urban areas is a helpful way to fight climate change, and can be done on a local level from your back yard to the Greenwich Audubon Center sanctuaries.
For those who don’t enjoy manual labor but still want to help, there are indoor opportunities as well from staffing the front desk and answering visitor questions, to manning information stations, to feeding one of the ambassador reptiles at the center, there are many ways to volunteer and build community both indoors and outdoors. There are opportunities for both adults and youth at the Greenwich Audubon Center, so be sure to visit the volunteer page online to discover what opportunity f its you best.
Volunteering is a great way to engage with the natural world. Learn what grows in your own backyard as you learn how to identify native and invasive species at the Greenwich Audubon Center; recognize bird calls on your neighborhood walk after volunteering as a teacher naturalist to teach kids about the ecosystem around them. Through volunteering, we create bonds with each other, the community, and with the natural world that serve us even after the volunteering event itself is over.
Josey Gardner is the Sr. Center Assistant at the Greenwich Audubon Center and an outdoor enthusiast. She has worked in various outdoor fields, from nonprofit conservation to parks and recreation.
