Volunteers and Friends

There are many ways to become involved in FRIENDS. Volunteers assist the refuges in areas of management, including administrative, maintenance, biological, environmental education, visitor services, and outreach.The organization also has a variety of volunteer opportunities for members who want to become more involved.

Opportunities

Administrative - assisting the office with filing, data entry, and mass mailings.

Maintenance - trail, dock, boardwalk, and kiosk construction, trail maintenance (cutting the grass, weed-eating, etc.), litter pick-up, wildlife nest box construction, and other woodworking projects.

Biological - wildlife surveys, including shore birds, wading birds, songbirds (both neotropical migratory and breeding), gopher tortoise, and others.

Friends Group - grant writing, grant administration, mass mailings, purchasing, newsletter articles, membership and many other ways to get invloved.

Environmental Education - programs presented to schools and community organizations, such as Boy and Girl Scouts of America, about sea turtles, alligators, migratory birds, and ecology, among other topics. Programs are held in both the classroom and on-site

Visitor Services - providing on-site tours of refuge resources, including bird, wildflower, and butterfly walks during the Fall and Spring, canoe and bicycle tours on refuge trails, hosting special events during National Wildlife Refuge Week, and assisting with refuge clean-up days.

Outreach - working information booths and festivals such as Naturefest, Cedar Key Spring Arts Festival, Seafood Festival, Seahorse Key Open House events in July and October, and other special programs. Both FRIEINDS and the refuges have educational and informational displays.