The Obey Center hosts classroom groups on Wednesdays and Thursdays (as scheduled). The staff seeks people to volunteer with the classroom groups throughout the school year. These visits run from 9:00 to 2:00. Time is allotted for lunch. They need one volunteer with each school group to work in the Obey Center while staff work with the students outside.

The Obey Center is open from 9:00 - 3:00 throughout the year on Wednesday through Sunday.

Volunteer work includes:

1. Staffing the front desk: greeting non-school visitors and answering their questions, selling IATA and park merchandise

2. Help with the Exhibit Search. Students are divided into 3-person teams. They receive a worksheet. They have to travel to different stations within the displays and look for answers to questions. The volunteer has an Answer Key for the worksheet, and they check the students’ answers.

3. A volunteer may be scheduled to lead a hike.

Email or call Dave Hladilek if you are interested in volunteering. He will contact you if you volunteer to find out when you are available.

Contact Dave Hladilek at Dave.Hladilek@wisconsin.gov or call him at 715-967-2800. He needs to perform a background check because you would be working with school children. He needs your name, email, and phone number.

NOTE: Volunteers for the Ice Age Trail must have a signed Volunteer Agreement from the National Park Service. If you do not have a volunteer agreement, you must get one from Dan Watson at the Wisconsin office of the National Park Service.

Renewing your Volunteer Agreements annually if you plan to do any kind of volunteer work on behalf of the Ice Age Trail. This includes trail maintenance, shuttling, event support, and other volunteer activity in support of the trail . Please use the links below for the Volunteer Agreement and the email address for sending it in to Dan Watson.

Please allow enough time between submitting your annual agreement and the activiity you will be volunteering for.

To access the new Volunteer Agreement, here is the link: https://www.iceagetrail.org/wp-content/uploads/Packet-Individual-301a-IATR-Staff_508.pdf. Please fill out the fillable form and email it to: iatr_vip_ice_age_trail@nps.gov.

NOTE: Fill in all the required boxes. The fillable boxes are on everything except the signature line. You can type your name and date in the date box next to the signature line. Save the document to your computer and then send it to Dan Watson as an attachment. Or print off your completed document, sign it, and mail it to Dan Watson. Dan’s address is on the directions page that comes with the form.
When you send in the Volunteer Agreement to Dan Watson, he will sign it and return it to you. Please print a copy for yourself or save it in your files. Email us at chippewamorainechapter@iceagetrail.org to let us know that you have received your new signed Volunteer Agreement.

Finally, mark your calendar to submit a new agreement one year from the date of your new agreement.

The Ice Age Trail Alliance has published a rucksack load of informational booklets on trail building and maintenance, specific to the Ice Age Trail. You can find links to many of them here: Trail Design and Maintenance

These are PDF's, and clicking the link will download them for your own library. Toward the end are other references from the NPS, DNR, and USFS.

If you are a trail adopter, mower, writer, chapter officer, or anyone who works at or attends other than at a formal “event”, you must keep a log of your volunteer hours and submit it quarterly to Libby Stupak. These records are important when it comes time to justify to funders the amount of volunteer impact their support provides. 

The IATA website (https://www.iceagetrail.org/volunteer/) explains record-keeping. You should record your hours on the Individual Hours Log form, which you can download from the web page:  Just go to https://www.iceagetrail.org, just click the big yellow VOLUNTEER button at the top of the page, and scroll down past the numbers to the “Get Involved” section where you can find the Volunteer Individual Log form or the first time volunteer’s Individual Volunteer Services Agreement Form.

Please send the completed form right away at the beginning of each new quarter (January, April, July, and October). Send the completed form to Libby Stupak, stupakls@hotmail.com.

Some volunteers print out a page and keep it handy to write down hours as they occur; later, they transfer the entries to the page on their computer so they can email it to Libby. Others use a notebook or a page on their smartphone. Whatever system works best for you, just be sure to use it and then submit the hours on the form on your computer using email. 

Note:  If you attended a chapter event, such as a meeting or trail improvement day, and signed in on a form at the event (or saw that it was recorded), you should not include it on your personal record document. 

Remember to mark your calendars and send them at the end of September, December, March, and June, and repeat every year.

Download Volunteer Hours Log Forms: Excel or Word

A new safety initiative from the National Park Service offers participants online self-study videos that examine the objectives taught in the Park Service Operational Leadership training. It’s an approach that focuses on the mindset needed to work safely, not a cookbook on how to use a tool.

The series consists of 8 videos, with a total time of about 3 hours.

Take a look at the NPS IAT website and scroll down to the Trail Safe! feature to find the link. Start at the beginning and complete the Training Verification Roster back at the Trail Safe! home page, and you’ll receive a pin and other info from NPS. Also be sure to keep track of your time spent and report it to the chapter to be sure we capture your volunteer hours.

If you think the training presenter looks vaguely familiar, that’s because the series is presented by Dan Watson of the Ice Age National Scenic Trail National Park Service headquarters. Dan is planning to visit our chapter in the near future to talk about some current issues and will be more than delighted if you have questions for him that have arisen from watching the series. The series has now been adopted by many other trails and parks in the NPS system, so Dan’s a celebrity.

The training isn’t about how to open a saw, or how not to cut off your finger when closing a saw. Rather it is an approach to safety that analyzes human behavior.

What better way to stay engaged with your IAT volunteer needs than to learn some important skills right at home.

Questions about the series can be directed to Dan Watson.