Volunteer Groups
Small groups of volunteers can arrange to stay at Las Casas de La Selva. During their stay volunteers take part in all the activities of the project including forestry work, road and track maintenance, plantation surveying, construction, nursery work and erosion control. The property also affords opportunities for spectacular hikes into the wilderness area and there are many local places of interest to visit.
Please contact Norman Greenhawk for more information if you have a group of 12-16 people who wish to volunteer for 5-15 day intensive projects.
Teenage groups are welcome with chaperones and facilitators.
Individual Volunteer Opportunities - come on your own!
Below are a just a few of the wonderful groups that have volunteered for us in the past, as well as a brief synopsis of their stay.
GLOBALWORKS& WINDSOR MOUNTAIN
Since 2003, Globalworks and Windsor Mountain Youth Groups have been involved in volunteer programs at the project, and since 2005, involvement within the local comunity of Patillas has commenced. Since 1990, Global Works has been providing exceptional community service and cultural exchange programs around the world for teenagers and young adults.
Global Works Puerto Rico, in addition to working with Las Casas de la Selva, is active in Vieques and a land rescue community in Vega Alta.
Peruse through our newsletters to see the work that Globalworks volunteers have accomplished at the project, along with other volunteer youth groups.
EARTHTRAIN
During 1998/99, Tropic Ventures collaborated with Gateway Pacific Foundation "Earthtrain", & hosted Youth Leadership Training Programs for young people aged 16 and over. These programs involved young people from the US and Puerto Rico taking part in the extensive clean-up and repair work that followed Hurricane Georges in 1998. Earthtrain volunteers cleaned up debris from destroyed buildings, helped to install a new water system, and rebuilt a meeting pavillion.
APPALACHAIN STATE UNIVERSITY
In 2011, Appalachain State University sent a student volunteer group on an “Alternative Spring Break” to Las Casas de la Selva. This group of energetic individuals helped repair a staff member’s casita, cleared the forest road, and completed the arduous task of terraforming steps into the side of the hill at the end of the Ethnobotanical Nature Trail, a task that involved carving soils step and reinforcing them with river rock that was hauled from up from the river nearly 100 feet lower in elevation!
FRYEBURG ACADEMY
Since 2009, Las Casas de la Selva has been fortunate enough to host a group every year from the Fryeburg Academy in Maine. Chris Strahler, Emily Strahler, and Joel Rhymer always bring a group of excellent, excited, idealistic young students who take genuine joy in the tasks they perform at Las Casas. Past projects with Fryeburg include trail building, hillside terracing on the Ethnobotanical Nature Trail, roadwork, homestead upgrades, and construction work.
ECKERD COLLEGE
In 2009, student Rebecca Richards brought a group of Eckerd undergraduates to Las Casas de la Selva. These hard-working individuals helped us rebuild our Sun Nursery that had been destroyed in a storm, allowing us to continue to propagate vegetable seedlings for our garden, decorative plants for our landscaping, and plants for the Ethnobotanical Nature Trail. Eckerd students also helped dig and establish a drainage ditch along the forest road. While this may seem mundane, this ongoing task is essential to maintaining the integrity of our forest road. Without proper drainage, we get landslides, which means no road, which means our forestry practices, our scientific research, our public outreach, all of it comes to a halt.
