Trail Mason Works on Trails in San Diego

120 Volunteers

While at a the Outdoor Industry Association's Rendezvous in San Diego, CA this past week, I got the opportunity to participate in the community service project they organize as part of the conference. Timberland is the Organizer and main sponsor of the service project. This year the service project was at Balboa City Park in San Diego, CA. There were two projects to chose from, Trail building or invasive plant removal...... wasn't a tough choice for me.

Before

After

After working for about an hour moving brush I spotted a mattock and asked the Ranger if there was any bench cutting to be done. Looking a little surprised at my choice of words, he said, "Yes, we need to cut the slope on the up hill side of the trail down...." Needless to say, after last Saturday's NPLD event at WyCo, I couldn't wait to do a little more bench cutting..... I soon inherited the bench cutting responsibility and had about a dozen folks off and on working on this project. We were able to complete about 100 yards in about three hours.

They came up with a neat little recognition  program for volunteers that stood out called the "Trail Soldier Award." In order to be considered you had to be nominated by a peer including a verbal description of why the nominee was deserving. Nominees names were yelled out along with statements about why they deserved special recognition. It was a lot of fun and the folks recognized really seemed to be thrilled with the attention. This might be something we consider at our work days.

I know how much work and help it takes to get ready for one of our workdays that has 30-50 volunteers. This project had 120 volunteers (that's three Greyhound Buses full of people). The folks at Timberland did an awesome job at organizing this event. They should be proud of how this group of Outdoor Industry professional came together to leave San Diego just a little better then when we arrived.

This is the only conference I have ever attended that has a community service project associated with the event. Besides the great speakers, topics and networking, the community service project is enough for me to chose this as a must attend event.....