Find your volunteering happy place

For the past several months I have had the pleasure of volunteering for the Charleston County Park and Recreation Natural History Department as a Natural History Interpretive Docent. In the spring we provided guests at Caw Caw Interpretive Center an opportunity to view the occupied Bald Eagle nest on the property. Volunteers would head out to the dike area and set up a scope to give the guests an up close and personal view of the massive nest and the materials that the eagles use to construct it. We were also fortunate enough to have one eaglet that guests could hear crying out for its parents and see hopping around the nest as it prepared to fledge. Every so often we would get a glimpse of the parents soaring in the sky or standing watch in a nearby cypress tree.

Once the eaglet fledged the nest we transitioned to preparing to educate the public about the American Alligator at James Island County Park. Our main goal as Alligator Ambassadors is to educate about the importance of alligators, why they are important to the environment and why not to feed or harass them. This program has a focus towards children and they have shown a strong interest and eagerness to learn about this keystone species during my volunteer time. It’s very rewarding to be able to deliver this conservation message to the children and see the excitement on their faces as they are playing our educational “What do alligators eat?” food game and studying the specimens on the table.

We are working to bring additional educational opportunities to guests at other parks within Charleston County Parks and Recreation throughout the year. Have you found your volunteer happy place? If you are interested in volunteering with this great team you can reach out to Noel Williams at nwilliams@ccprc.com.