The Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers have been around for 29 years, a regional nonprofit that organizes stewardship projects of public lands, trails and natural resource areas. 

From Independence Pass to Rifle and from Marble to Glenwood Canyon, the RFOV have employed staff, students and volunteers for work on sustainable recreation, healthy landscapes and fire mitigation and restoration. 

Rebecca Schild, Executive Director of RFOV, gave more details about what the organization was all about. 

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“We do trailwork, habitat restoration, invasive species removal, post fire recovery, and fuel mitigation. With those two big fires, we do erosion stabilization to help those areas recover from the fires,” she said. 

Schild reported that their staff is small, only seven people, and they bring on six more seasonal staff members for their project season.

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Last year, Schild reported they had over 1,400 volunteers to help. 

“It was our biggest turnout. We’ve grown a lot in the past five years,” Schild said. “We spent 200 days in the field last year and logged over 8,000 volunteer hours.

While the RFOV is mostly adult volunteers, they get students as well, but they curate their programs for the students’ benefits.

“We have a Young Stewards program, where we have more fun activities interwoven and making sure they’re learning something tied to their curriculum,” Schild said. 

The Young Stewards program, has been around since 2012, and usually centers on enhancing local playgrounds or projects on their school campuses. 

This year, the first community project available is on Tuesday May 7, focusing on Doc Holliday’s Trail and the Linwood Cemetery. For three evenings, from 4 to 8 p.m., the RFOV will be working on the trail and cemetery.

“We’re trying to make sure the trail stays in good shape. With winter runoff, weather, trail usage, and because it’s so steep, it will have damage. We’re trying to stabilize places more prone to erosion,” Schild said. “We’re also going to try and delineate the paths through the cemetery more to preserve the integrity of the historic site.”

On Saturday, May 11, RFOV will be working on the Silt River Preserve, an ongoing project to help restore the area. 

“Volunteers will plant native plants and make improvements to the area so that people can continue to walk through it, to bring ecological health back to an area that was degraded by grazing,” Schild said. 

On June 1, they intend to work on Rock Bottom Ranch in Basalt alongside the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies in terms of the path and access along the ranch. There will be activities for small children while their parents volunteer. 

“We’re also working on Hanging Lake in Glenwood Canyon hopefully in the fall,” Schild said. “We’re going to bring volunteers to help a professional crew as they rebuild the trails.”

The RFOV has had a management transition, which brought new energy and funding sources. They were able to increase their staff capacity and to tell their story a bit more. They’ve seen more volunteers. Schild also said this coincided with the pandemic. 

“People were looking to get outside and meet people and this was an opportunity where they wouldn’t necessarily be at risk,” she said. “There was also a surge of recreational activities, so greater stewardship was needed of public lands.We’ve been able to recruit and attract more people as a result.”

Schild said that some people back away from volunteering because they think they’re not fit enough, but she reassures them that their projects have different levels of strenuousness. 

“We communicate how strenuous a project will be on our event calendar and you don’t have to have any previous experience,” she said. “We teach you everything and it’s those low barrier entry opportunities that result in a fun day.”

Visit the RFOV website to learn more about them or check their event calendar to sign up for events and project strenuousness at http://www.rfov.org/.