Press Release
National Park Service
The Southeast Region of the National Park Service awarded two volunteer programs at Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site with the 2013 George and Helen Hartzog Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service. This annual award recognizes contributions from volunteers to national parks who give of their skills, talents and time beyond the normal call of duty.
The park’s NRCV or Natural Resource Conservation Volunteers received the award in the adult group volunteer category for their contributions to improving the appearance of the historic landscape and providing much-needed support to the park’s natural resource program. As a group the NRCV’s contributed 492 hours of service in 2013 clearing English ivy from historic rock walls, removing invasive exotic vines and shrubs from three acres of woodlands and fences, planting a small pasture lot of milkweed to establish a Monarch butterfly conservation area, collecting mushrooms for a park mushroom inventory, repotting sapling trees that will be later used for replacement projects, and removing mountains of invasive Chinese privet from wooded edges of rock outcrops.
The park’s FRESH or Flat Rock Exceptional Sandburg Helpers received the award in the youth group volunteer category for their contributions caring for the descendants of Mrs. Sandburg’s champion dairy goat herd. As a group, 44 FRESH youth contributed 1,560 hours of service in 2013 learning how to properly care for livestock, interpreting the story of Mrs. Sandburg’s dairy operation to park visitors, preparing goats for show at the North Carolina Mountain State Fair and competing at the fair. This program is a partnership with Henderson County 4-H. Mrs. Sandburg knew that young people were important and worked with 4-H on many occasions, writing that “This work with children is the finest work that anyone can do for dairy goats, as the future of the goat industry lies with the next generation.”
In 1970, National Park Service Director George Hartzog created the Volunteer-In-Parks program to make it easier for citizens to donate, their time and talents to national parks. Today the National Park Service presents awards in Hartzog’s honor to individual volunteers and groups for outstanding contributions. Director Hartzog understood the need to recognize these contributions and wrote, “When a VIP agrees to share his talents, skills and interests with the National Park Service, he is paying us one of the highest compliments possible by offering a most valued possession – his time.”
Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site, a unit of the National Park Service, is located three miles south of Hendersonville off U.S. 225 on Little River Road. The park is open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., daily. For further information, please telephone 828-693-4178, or visit our website at:
www.nps.gov/carl
About the National Park Service.
More than 20,000 National Park Service employees care for America’s 401 national parks and work with communities across the nation to help preserve local history and create close-to-home recreational opportunities. Learn more at www.nps.gov.
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