Ways to Get Involved
Whether you want to further conservation, learn more about nature or share your love of the outdoors, you’ve come to the right place. National wildlife refuges provide many opportunities for you to help your community and fish and wildlife by doing what you love. National wildlife refuges partner with volunteers, youth groups, landowners, neighbors and residents of urban and coastal communities to make a lasting difference. Find out how you can help make American lands healthier and communities stronger while doing something personally satisfying.
Volunteers: Gain new experiences and meet new people while helping to advance wildlife conservation.
Friends: Join neighbors in helping refuges restore habitat and expand access to green space.
Local Groups: Find out how communities can work with refuges better for wildlife and people.
Youth: Explore paid and unpaid opportunities to learn and develop leadership skills.
Volunteering
Discover for yourself what tens of thousands of volunteers have learned: Volunteering for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is fun and rewarding in many ways. Master new skills. Meet new friends. Enjoy a sense of accomplishment from doing your part to further wildlife conservation for the pleasure of generations to follow. Volunteer opportunities will be posted here.
Our Partners
Nature does not recognize human-made boundaries. In order to conserve our natural and cultural resources effectively, we must work with others to bridge these boundaries. Partnerships foster creative solutions to challenging situations and often the results are greater than the sum of the parts. Learn more about our local partners.
National Wild Turkey Federation
We partner with the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) to provide mentor-guided white-tailed deer and wild turkey hunts on the refuge to beginner youth & women hunters as well as disabled hunters.
The goal of the partnership is to unlock the outdoors for people of all abilities and introduce new hunters to the tradition of hunting. The refuge reserves a 200-acre parcel for these special hunting programs to give participants a safe, quality hunting experience.
If you are or know of a hunter who would be interested in participating in one of our mentored hunts, contact Jared Green at Jared_Green@fws.gov for more information.
Newton High School’s Future Farmers of America
The refuge partners with Newton High School’s Future Farmers of America (FFA) Chapter for several events. The FFA members are an integral part of our annual Think Outside Day, where 200 fifth-grade students from local schools rotate through ten stations of outdoor related skills and activities at the refuge. FFA organizes and runs more than half of the stations for the day all the while with great enthusiasm and energy. The refuge would not be able to pull off such a large event without this partnership.
Newton FFA also works with the refuge and the National Wild Turkey Federation for the youth and disabled sportsmen hunts at the refuge. The FFA chapter offers their facility and butchering skills to demonstrate deer processing for the youth hunt participants. They also provide an option for free deer processing to the disabled sportsmen hunters. The refuge is thankful to Newton FFA for being able to provide these services to our hunt participants and for continuing the partnership year after year.
Friends of Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge
Friends of Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge is an independent, non-profit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization founded in 2006 to support the work of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the refuge. Volunteers manage the activities of the Friends group and work in concert with refuge staff to protect the environment and promote public awareness. To learn more, please visit the Friends website.