We have been at our current assignment for 3 months now and have been really busy during our stay here. With no other volunteer we have been working 7 days a week since we got here. We have been updating our online stores with new items and I am working on a new book. In the mean time we have decided to offer our eBook version of our current book for 1/2 price for retail customers and $0.99 for Libraries. Below is a cute little widget from Smashwords to help promote our new pricing. We will be changing the Amazon Kindle price as well but not the paperback version. We only get a couple of dollars on these anyway.
Category: Volunteer at National Parks and Forest
Osceola National Forest Workamping
Osceola National Forest Workamping is a new experience for us. Not only are we in a forest but a national one at that. So the workamping rules and perks are slightly different than with our Florida State Parks. Originally we were slated to be campground hosts at Ocean Pond Campground but when we arrived the volunteer coordinator wanted us to go to the Olustee Beach Day Park and Boating area. Since, they currently do not have any park hosts in this area and have one at the campground we said, “Okay with us!”. And, for now, it is turning out to be similar to our Troy Springs State Park experience. We clean the bathrooms, mow the grass and open and close the gates each day.
Now for the differences. First, we are allowed to stay for 6 months here instead of the maximum 4 months with the Florida State Parks. National parks and, especially, forest and wildlife refuges have different guidelines for their live on-site volunteers. Mostly, because it is very difficult to get volunteers to stay from the late spring to early fall months. And, once you have proven yourself they are allowed to let you stay longer if you wish and it is needed. Just like the state parks, each of the national parks, forests and wildlife refuges do not have many problems getting volunteers to stay from October to the end of March. So, there is great opportunities here for those of us willing to stay in Florida during the “Non-Peak” seasons!
Working Holidays as Park Hosts
Working holidays as parks hosts or campground hosts in our Florida State Parks will take up quite a few of your required hours for the month. Not only do you have to get your regular duties done but you will more than likely get called in to set-up the park for any special events planned during the holiday, replace park staff that will be taking off for said holidays and there will probably be more people in the park during those holidays to deal with. It seems that almost every single Florida State Park that offers camping will be full during every single holiday that falls on a weekend. Of course, this generally corresponds to the kids getting out of school for the holidays. Mostly, you get local residents every weekend with a few out-of-state visitors as well. This includes Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Independence Day and Memorial Day. As hot as it gets in Florida during May and July there will be lots of people camping in the state parks.
This will make your duties a little harder to get done but the mission of the parks is to encourage attendance as much as possible. It can be nice to talk to the different kinds of visitors, find out where they are from, ask the locals for recommendations of restaurants, stores and the like. You are one of the park’s ambassadors and as such you want to project a friendly and knowledgeable face so that they will keep coming back. We also try to talk to each of them about the benefits of volunteering. You can never have too many of those!
Our First Press Release
Our first press release has been created and posted on the PRLOG.org website. They offer free press release services for writers, small businesses and anyone else who needs to make an announcement of a new book, service, and even non-profit stuff. They create embed codes to add to your website, tweet it, post to Linkedin…
Happy Day It Is Done
Happy Day, it is done and available online at Amazon. We have been working on our eBook for full-time RVers who would like to volunteer in one of our many Florida parks including the State Parks, State Forests, Florida Wildlife and Water Management Areas as well as our Florida National Parks, Forests and Seashores. We hope you will try our eBook and give it a review on our Amazon page. We even went ahead and created an author page. We hope to use the proceeds from the sales of this eBook to allow us to keep going to various Florida public parks and volunteer.
If our eBook really starts to sell we will be able to donate a portion of the proceeds to various Florida public lands to keep them going, update equipment, maintain facilities and possibly fund more places to be set up for volunteers all year round. So far, we have only been able to volunteer at Florida State Parks but are working on assignments at some of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Management areas, county camping parks and even a couple of the Florida State Forests. They offer a different volunteer experience than the Florida State Parks we have visited and volunteer for so far. These experiences will be great to experience as well as to report to our readers.
What We All Want As Volunteers
As I am putting in the finishing touches on my first eBook I thought about all the volunteer assignments we have had and all the ones I am writing about. How they differ and how they are the same whether the management is the Florida State Parks, Florida State Forests, Florida County Governments or even the National Parks/Forests departments they all want volunteers. However, they are not all willing to give us live on-site volunteers the bare essentials to work there. Yes, most will give you a campsite but a lot of them do not think it is necessary to include a sewer on site. Now, I can see not putting sewers on all the campsites in the campground because the cost is tremendous and the impact to the environment may not be all that good. But, hey, come on the volunteers campsites are generally located next to the bathhouses. How hard is it to run a sewer line to one or two of the camp host sites? Below is an excerpt from my upcoming eBook that I thought you might like to read about this very thing.
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