Volunteer Opportunities

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We have many volunteer opportunities throughout the year, so be sure to sign up for our emails to stay up to date.

 

As a volunteer, you might:

  • sample water at streams around the watershed
  • work with other volunteers on a river cleanup
  • staff an event table on behalf of the Watershed Association
  • take photo’s of sites around the watershed for use in publications
  • survey dams and culverts
  • assist with office projects

Descriptions of Volunteer Opportunities

Citizen Water Monitoring Network (CWMN)

The Citizen Water Monitoring Network (“CWMN” – pronounced “swimmin”) is a volunteer-based monitoring program that assesses water quality in Neponset waterways. Each year, roughly 50 volunteers take water samples, monitor dissolved oxygen levels, and transport samples from 41 locations around the watershed, six times throughout the spring, summer and fall.

For the monitoring season, we seek volunteers to fill the following CWMN positions:

  • water samplers
  • dissolved oxygen samplers
  • sample coordinators
  • sample transporters

Each position plays a vital role in helping the Watershed Association to monitor water quality throughout the watershed. In addition to filling those positions, we also seek “Fill-In Samplers” whose duty it is to help cover sampling locations when a station’s regular volunteer is unable to sample. We provide training and equipment, and you provide a few hours of your time. The result is a comprehensive look at water quality around the Neponset River Watershed, which helps the Watershed Association to monitor the river and prioritize clean-up and restoration efforts.

For more information about CWMN, contact NepRWA Executive Director, Ian Cooke at cooke@neponset.org

Cleanups

Twice a year, in the spring and fall, we hold cleanups at various locations along the Neponset River, tributaries, and parks.  Join us for a few hours and help beautify the areas that we rely on for recreation and wildlife. You can assist from the land or from the river! All ages are welcome!

For more information. please contact NepRWA Greenway and Natural Resource Specialist, Andres Ripley at ripley@neponset.org

Photographers

We are looking for folks who like to take pictures! We could use pictures of beautiful landscapes, pictures of pollution, pictures of flooding, pictures of watershed association events, and volunteers. Most of all we need pictures of people (and faces) who are out enjoying or working on the watershed.

Please keep photographs focused on the geographic area of the watershed, which includes Hyde Park, Mattapan, Dorchester, Canton, Dedham, Dover, Foxborough, Medfield, Milton, Norwood, Randolph, Quincy, Sharon, Stoughton, Walpole, and Westwood.

To email photos:

Share photos via social media @neprwa:

Advocate for Watershed Protection

Advocate for watershed protection! Join the watershed association’s e-mail list to receive advocacy updates, and then act according to your own schedule.

For more information. please contact NepRWA Advocacy Director, Kerry Snyder at snyder@neponset.org

“On-Call” Helpers

These volunteers have their names added to the “on-call” volunteer email list and agree to “help when they can” with short-term group efforts to prepare mailings, provide an extra set of hands on the day of a special event, or assist with other miscellaneous tasks as they come up.

The location varies depending on the need – e.g., sometimes at the office and sometimes at a special event location. Time and schedule also depend on need. Generally, short-term projects are 1 to 2 hours in duration. Commitment is determined by the volunteer.

For more information. please contact NepRWA Greenway and Natural Resource Specialist, Andres Ripley at ripley@neponset.org

Volunteer today!