Eldo Parks Volunteer Deal

News from Mike McHugh
Eldo Parks Pass Volunteer Offer

The concept of offering a pass in exchange for work is admirable but the hours should be greatly reduced to encourage participation. An Annual Parks Pass costs $70. 48 hrs of work equates to $1.46 per hour (even less if accounting for gas money as climbers do, e.g. 6 or 7 commutes...for those tracking details). For reference, consider Colorado's minimum wage of $7.36. Yes, I understand the 'volunteerism' and 'community service' aspect but the warm/fuzzy only goes so far.

I think most would agree the incentive at $1.46/hr for hard labor is negligible to nil. I suggest a pass for 24 hrs of work. Some trails (e.g. Upper West Redgarden Wall) are in desperate need of work and the Park needs volunteers to not only repair trails but to prevent further degradation, some of which is severe and, if left unattended, will suffer irrepairable damage.

Eldo State Park has neither budget nor staff to accomplish such work on its' own. (Witness the proposal to reduce costs by merging The Department of Wildlife with State Parks.) The Park will garner more than three times the number of volunteers at 24 hrs than it would at 48 hrs.

ABB, I kind of agree with, hard to imagine that upping the "pay" to $2.92/hour would triple volunteers... There's some solid academic research which shows that paying people small amounts of money DECREASES their willingness to do volunteer work. The basics, as I recall: volunteers want to feel good about what they do, payment cheapens that feeling, and bad pay devalues their work even further.

If you believe that research, there would be more volunteers if they provided no monetary incentive at all.

Now if they provided beer...