I volunteered for a work day cleaning up Fountain Creek in Manitou Springs, CO. I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of information provided by the very knowledgeable staff before we began the work. Some groups spend too much time standing around and some groups don't give you any background - RMFI was perfect. Everything was well organized and the people (staff and volunteers) were great. I hope to be able to do more projects with them soon.

I had my first and only encounter with SCA in the Great Sand Dunes National Preserve in the summer of 2012. I was a couple miles into the wilderness when I stopped to chat with a few young people with hard hats, picks, and shovels working on the trail I was using. I barely caught the name of their organization (SCA), but ran into them again the next two days as I hiked the area looking for bighorn sheep (I had an archery tag). On my last day, I ended up camping close to their camp and they were packing up to leave the same day. I stopped by to offer my thanks for all their hard work on the trails and had a nice discussion with several of them. Turns out, they had been out there for 4 weeks! The Park Service had dropped them off with equipment and supplies, and they had worked on their own for a month, and without pay! I thought, wow, it must be a pretty amazing organization that can find young people (early 20s?) to make that kind of commitment. I found the group on-line and made a small donation that day.

I have volunteered with this group at the International Sportsmans Expo (ICE) and on several occasions in the field pulling old fences (dangerous to wildlife) and cutting firebreaks for prescribed burns. Every other volunteer I have met and the one paid employee I spoke with were down-to-Earth, genuine people, who are concerned about habitat loss. They are almost exclusively hunters that enjoy sharing stories of elk camp and the great outdoors. Plus, the magazine (Bugle) is the best hunting mag available!