by Dan Glass, KTA Trail Care Committee Member
I’ve noticed 2 things in the short time I’ve helped out the Standing Stone Trail Club and the KTA: how hard you guys and gals all work and how humble you all are. Both are the perfect combination of what volunteering your personal time means for a cause you believe in. We trail maintainers are an altruistic bunch who selflessly give our time for the forests and trails we love, ensuring that everyone can enjoy these special places and experience them as the perfect antidote for the “routine.”
, Trail Care Committee MemberWe do, however, need you to sing your own praises about the hours you and your groups volunteer to keep those trails free from debris and wide open. We at the KTA like to recognize the volunteers that make significant contributions to Pennsylvania’s footpaths, to let the hiking community know that we value their time and effort on behalf of all hikers.
In addition, when funding is available through the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation of Natural Resources (DCNR) or elsewhere, your volunteer hours – along with those from KTA’s own Trail Care Program – help determine if, and how much, grant funding KTA will receive. Thinking in terms of an organization’s survival, we definitely could use more “toot your own horn” kind of thinking! Simply put, the more hours you work for us, the more money the state may give us to keep those trails open.
We need to get all hours you work tabulated as quickly and accurately as possible. Our fiscal year runs from October 1 through September 30, so it’s very important that we know these hours so we can maintain the appropriate paperwork.
We know how tough it can be to get money and manpower for our projects, but we do have an avenue for getting the funds we need to keep you supplied with power tools, the gasoline to run them, and the myriad other supplies we need, too. Help us increase the chance that we will receive funding for these projects, by completing and returning our form. By tabulating your club’s volunteer hours, you provide KTA with the resources it needs to compete more effectively for the limited grant funding available to trail maintain groups in Pennsylvania. The more grant funding we receive, the more the KTA can help trail groups like yours!
And helping you is what it’s all about!
Our Volunteer Hours Coordinators on the KTA Trail Care Committee will keep track of your valuable contributions—specifically, the name of your organization, the total number of members in your organization, the name of the trail maintained, the number of miles maintained, the name of the landowner, the number of volunteers who worked the session, the number of hours traveled, and the name and e-mail address of the current compiler of hours.
We have a list of representatives from each trail maintaining organization we plan to contact. We hope you’ll share with us about your club’s needs and concerns, as well as your volunteer hours. If you receive a call and/or a request form and you’re not the person we need to contact, we would appreciate you providing us with the contact information of the appropriate individual in charge of this responsibility.
Thank you in advance for completing these forms! If you have any questions, please email me.