The Volunteer Stewardship Program provides year-round opportunities to protect and restore Southern Michigan’s native ecosystems. By joining our network of dedicated volunteers, you can make a direct impact through invasive species management, bird monitoring and native seed collection – essential work that ensures our state parks thrive for generations.
Through dedicated stewardship efforts, the DNR works to protect and sustain these natural resources for years to come.
Join a community of hands-on nature lovers that help remove invasive threats threatening high-quality ecosystems across southern lower Michigan. Volunteers learn plant identification, see rare ecosystems, connect with others and make a difference!
Private workdays are a fantastic way to strengthen community connections, while make a lasting impact on high-quality ecosystems. Whether you're a scout troop, a school club or a corporate team, a private workday strengthens your bond while leaving a lasting legacy on the land.
Prefer the quiet of the outdoors? Give back independently. From landscape photomonitoring, invasive species mapping and removal to native seed collection, we empower you with the gear and guidance to lead your own stewardship journey.
Sign up to receive emails about workdays and independent volunteer opportunities in a park near you.
Our volunteers' dedication made a significant impact on high-quality ecosystems in state parks across southern lower Michigan this year.
Volunteers and stewardship staff play important roles in photo monitoring, which provides critical data that assist in identifying proper management approaches. These time-lapse videos reveal the ways natural areas change over time.
Protecting animal and plant species, and the natural areas in which they live, is at the heart of photo monitoring efforts in our state parks. It’s a longstanding project – starting in the 1990s – that reveals how dunes, forests, marshes and other landscapes change over time.
“Being outdoors and doing something that is meaningful – it fulfills me, and it refreshes me. It’s about being out in nature, stepping away from all our electronics, seeing the beauty of it all and knowing I am doing something that could potentially help a place stay beautiful for other people and for my children … I love that sense of community when you volunteer. There are so many other like-minded people there, yet many of us have different jobs, different home lives and different situations but we all have the desire to do something that is good for the planet."
– Jenn Myers, Lansing resident and mother of four who has participated in more than a dozen volunteer stewardship events with DNR staff and sometimes with her young adult kids.
