18 Jul Busy Bee!

Almost every Wednesday I have been working at the Adventure Station at REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc.), where I help visitors plan their trip activities in any of the National Park. There are a few other Adventure Stations at REI’s Flagship stores throughout the country. The Adventure Station is stocked with detailed maps and guidebooks, and digital resources to make planning a trip easy. Over the past few months we have been doing outreach to find volunteers to work at the Adventure Station. We have found 8 very excited volunteers who have gone through training and have already started working! Tom, who is an intern for SCA ( Student Conservation Association) and works at the Adventure Station five days a week, and I have been planning a volunteer training at REI over the past two weeks. We planed to have two training sessions that worked best for our volunteers. The day of the training, Tom and I gathered the material that we needed to prepare the volunteers. We talked about how to use the technology at the station like turning on the iPad and how to connect the iPad to the TV through Apple TV. We also talked about the many resources that are available for them at the Adventure Station like books, websites, and Apps in order to help visitors plan their trips. Since the training I have been organizing a schedule for all new and current volunteers and NPS employees. Not only have I been working with the new volunteers at the Adventure Station at REI but I have been helping other parks like National Mall and Memorial Parks and Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens plan activities for Latino Conservation Week! I won’t give too much away but both will be a lot of fun with lots of interaction!! I have also planned two events at the Adventure Station where Hispanic Access Foundation will table next to the Adventure Station so visitors gain insight on our goals with Latino Conservation Week. Another event that I have helped plan is the Arlington Peruvian Festival, where a Ranger from Rock Creek Park and a Ranger from George Washington Memorial Park will be tabling and informing guests about natural resources in near by parks and how to keep parks and the grounds of the festival clean. Lastly, we are now planning the Spotlight Challenge, which is our end of summer event for the Youth Summit that is on August 2nd! I believe that it will be just as much fun as the opening event! Don’t forget to check out the Adventure Station’s Instagram account “dcadventurestation”!