Become a Member / Volunteer

Volunteers for field work or administrative tasks can start right away working with one of our committee chairs. We ask that volunteers become members so that our insurance covers them during the volunteer work, and as part of building community. Volunteer work can be as simple as helping with river cleanups, or volunteers can choose to delve into the work more deeply by becoming a trained docent. Members receive our informative quarterly newsletter and have the right to vote and to put forth agenda items for the Board to consider.

The Petaluma Wetlands Alliance (PWA) provides docent training each year for members who are interested in becoming docent volunteers. The course consists of lectures on wetlands, ecology, plants, birds, other wetlands animals, and training in hands-on techniques used with school groups.  Docents are also asked to make a 2-year, 20-hours-per-year commitment as a docent, since considerable efforts and resources go into the training. Most docents find the training and work to be very rewarding.