Showing off their green thumbs

440. Oh yeah. That’s the size of a well-known big-block engine on restored Mopar muscle cars. But this isn’t a story about smoking tires. That exact figure also happens to be the number of plants that volunteers put into the ground during a day of selfless service on the San Bernardino National Forest, Sept. 23, 2023. Those volunteers, about 25 of them, showed up during National Public Lands Day to help restore a site that had been cleared of vegetation on an unauthorized, off-highway vehicle staging area. And actually, that day was celebrated around the country by thousands of volunteers helping to clean and restore public, open spaces.

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Without volunteers, restoration projects would not be possible, said Drew Farr, Restoration Botanist with the Mountain Top Ranger District of the forest. The Green Thumbs volunteer program that he runs is a collaboration with the Southern California Mountains Foundation. The two agencies share a volunteer list that has a few thousand people; they help with plantings, seed dispersal, seed collection, invasive plant removal, painting signs – a lot of the labor required to make a project successful.

On the forest that Saturday, volunteers traveled from various locations in Southern California to improve the natural landscape of a well-worn area near Forest Service Road 2N25. But before they could thrust trowels into the dirt, the hard ground had to be prepared and that was done in advance. Lake Arrowhead Community Services District used machinery to place boulders and off-highway vehicle volunteers churned the ground, said Farr. He has led many restoration projects and planned to work on this site after setting his eyes on it a couple of years ago.

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“It’s a great spot to do it, because it’s right on the forest boundary where people are entering the forest from the community,” Farr said. “We can really use our skills, our plants, and our knowledge of the area to improve the habitat quality right here. Those were our big aims.”

Helping with those goals included Elizabeth and Kursti Martinsen of Menifee, Calif. The couple has volunteered on the forest for the past three years. They are avid trekkers and had a desire to help.

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“We spend a lot of time in the forest hiking and adventuring around and we just wanted some way that we could help restore and give back to the forest that we enjoy so much,” Elizabeth said. “We’re kind of making up for a little bit of the damage that humans have wreaked all over the place. So, it feels good to kind of right those wrongs a little bit.”

Ofelia Torres and her two, young sons made the drive from Downey, Calif., to assist with digging holes and planting native vegetation in the sandy soil. She has participated in a beach cleanup, but it was her first time volunteering on the forest. She enjoyed the work and being part of a team. Her 11-year-old son, Yesner Martinez, was also able to log hours for a requirement at his middle school.

Arriving from the nearby community of Yucaipa, Scott Quinnel said he was helping out on the forest for the first time after also having cleaned beaches. He is no stranger to volunteering in community projects, having grown up involved as a Boy Scout in different events. He encourages users of the forest to help conserve it.

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“If they hike, OHV, ski, do anything on the forest, they should understand the ecology and what it takes to keep these areas accessible, open to the public and beautiful,” Quinnel said. “We want to make sure that we preserve these areas for the long term and the next generation. Hopefully we can get more people out here to learn and respect nature and do something good.”

Making sure volunteers felt appreciated and welcomed was a role Lisa Underwood undertook that day. She is the restoration manager for the Southern California Mountains Foundation, which set up tables and canopies and prepared a lunch for the volunteers.

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“It’s a time when we can connect with volunteers,” Underwood said. “People are looking for ways to connect with their communities, their forest, to meet like-minded people and to serve with like-minded people. It’s a good way to just get people out here together, feeling good. This is important work, because it’s restoring the land, it’s restoring our national forest and the public lands belong to all of us.”

That sentiment was also shared by Farr.

“I can’t say enough about our volunteers,” Farr said. “We wouldn’t be able to this without them. We really appreciate all the hard work they put into caring for the public land.”

If you would like to get out and be part of restoration projects, nature sites not classic Mopar cars, contact Farr at drew.farr@usda.gov.

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