Spend the Summer Volunteering at Lovers Key State Park

Thank you for your interest in volunteering at Lovers Key State Park! Yes we do have campsites for volunteers.

We have six sites which are located in our “Volunteer Village” located adjacent to our shop area. Since our campsites are not in a typical campground they are larger than most campsites. However, our electrical pedestals and sewage hookups are located in the middle of two campsites so occasionally depending on your rig and how you decide to park it in the site, additional sewage and electrical cords/lines may be needed. I’ve attached a rendering one of our volunteers made of the sites to give you an idea of the sizes.

We are a day use park and have no campground so we do not have any Camp host type positions at our park. We prefer a commitment of at least two months and a maximum of four months.

To give you a feel for the position: we generally utilize our resident volunteers to assist the staff of four full-time Rangers in their duties opening and closing the park each day (this includes cleaning restrooms and collecting garbage at least two times a week), driving our tram to the beach (this includes at least two 4 hour shifts per week). Some other examples of duties our resident volunteers assist the staff with are mowing, maintaining trails, maintaining all vehicles, buildings, and equipment in the park as needed, collecting entry fees in our honor-fee entry areas and at the Ranger Station, guiding visitors on nature tours, exotic species eradication, seed collection and native planting, and any other projects and special events as needed. We will work with your skills and interests with the needs of the park.

The resident volunteers are expected to be enthusiastic, courteous, and professional representatives of the Florida Park Service. In exchange for your 32 hours/week/site (this can be divided between people residing at your site), we provide full electric, water, and sewage hook-ups. We do have a washer and dryer for volunteer use in our shop complex and we ask for $10 a month to help cover the costs of maintenance and upkeep of them.

We are proud to be featured as #4 on the Travel Channel’s “Florida’s Top Ten Beaches” and to be among the top five most visited state parks in Florida. Our barrier island beach-park features miles of trails through a shady maritime hammock, canals rich with fish and manatees, and white sandy beach suitable to sea turtle and shorebird nesting.

Nightly sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico are, of course, included. If you have any questions about this opportunity please don’t hesitate to contact me.