April brings National Volunteer Week (April 19–25) and Earth Day (April 22) – a concentrated recognition of action by, and appreciation for, volunteers who care for our planet. This month, we celebrate 810 people who collectively volunteered over 10,000 hours for the UW Arboretum and Friends of the Arboretum in 2025.

Thanks to the people who staffed the Visitor Center welcome desk; pulled weeds in gardens and prairies; organized the libraries; engaged kids at Earth Focus Day Camp; documented the presence of dragonflies, monarchs, and mushrooms; maintained the bluebird trail; helped customers in the bookstore; collected seeds in gardens and restoration sites; accompanied night walks; traversed trails as stewards; entered data on volunteer engagement at work parties; pruned hedges in Longenecker Horticultural Gardens – and did all of this with smiles and enthusiasm. Friends of the Arboretum also relies on volunteers to serve on the Board, plan trips and Luncheon Lectures, and make the Native Plant Sale – a popular event that supports Arboretum – a rousing success.

We can’t fully capture such an abundance of action into one story but I offer a few examples to illustrate the breadth of its impact.

Citizen science coordinator Annie Isenbarger shared, “In 2025, citizen scientists contributed over 1,000 hours monitoring species and site conditions at the Arboretum. We are deeply grateful for their dedication and careful observations that strengthen understanding of the land we steward. Volunteers monitored monarchs and milkweed, bats, dragonflies and damselflies, bluebirds, bumblebees, and fungi to help document health and diversity of these species. Others monitored Wingra springs chloride levels and tracked phenology observations, providing valuable insights about seasonal cycles and environmental changes happening on Arboretum land. Together, these efforts create an invaluable long-term record that supports research, informs land stewardship, and deepens our collective connection to this place.” She added that new people are invited to become Arboretum citizen scientists.

The contributions of folks who engage in citizen science and other Arboretum volunteer opportunities reminds me of something bell hooks wrote in her essay “To Be Whole and Holy,” from the book Belonging: A Culture of Place: “Coming home . . . was for me a journey back to a place where I felt I belonged. But it was also returning to a place that I felt needed me and my resources, a place where I as a private citizen could be in community with other folk seeking to revive and renew our local environment, seeking to have fidelity to a place. Living engagement with both a specific place and the issue of sustainability, we know and understand that we are living lives of interdependence.”

The Arboretum is entwined and interdependent geographically, socially, financially, and ecologically with the broader community. It is a specific place engaged in a mutually beneficial relationship with the broader community (human and non-human) around it.

Interdependence and mutually beneficial relationships were demonstrated in Longenecker Horticultural Gardens last year, where, according to curator David Stevens, “Volunteers collected 54 pounds of seed from 21 different magnolia trees, many of them rare taxa bred in Green Bay, Wisconsin, by the late Dennis Ledvina. The resulting 18 pounds of cleaned seed were shipped to the Spartanburg Community College in South Carolina, where other volunteers divided it and sent half to Arboretum Wespelaar in Haacht, Belgium, and packaged the remainder for distribution throughout North America. In Belgium, more volunteers packaged the seed for distribution throughout Europe. The Ledvina seed, in particular, is in high demand in Scandinavia. These efforts are part of the Magnolia Society International’s (MSI) seed counter program, in which research grants for graduate student projects that further magnolia understanding are supported through the sales of magnolia seed to other MSI members.” Volunteers help strengthen connections between Arboretum gardens and gardens around the world.

Earth Focus Day Camp is another delightful opportunity for volunteers to engage with place and community. In 2025, “volunteer assistant naturalists worked alongside campers to remove invasive woody plants from Curtis Prairie. I witnessed many great examples of teamwork: campers and volunteers lifting huge armfuls of plant material together, taking turns pulling on stubborn bittersweet vines, sharing tools, and enjoying well-deserved water and snack breaks together. I’m so thankful for the friendliness and safety awareness that our volunteers bring to youth programs,” says community education coordinator Maddie Smith.

The Friends of the Arboretum demonstrate commitment and fidelity to this place every year by providing significant financial support and community outreach for the Arboretum. Their key fundraiser is the FOA Native Plant Sale, which relies on volunteers for smooth functioning. Native plant sale and events coordinator Allison Eyring-Green shared that “in May, the volunteers graciously organized the online sale plant pickup and assembled the many garden kits we sold. We have a great group of dedicated plant sale volunteers and added several new volunteers in 2025. Everyone worked as a team. It was the first large-scale plant sale I coordinated, and the volunteers were very patient and helpful throughout those two weeks!”

These examples show how UW Arboretum volunteers and Friends of the Arboretum come together to form a community of people living out the land ethic in this place, reviving and renewing the environment each time they participate. We appreciate the contributions and look forward to ongoing mutually beneficial engagement in 2026 and beyond.

We are honored to share the list of 2025 Arboretum volunteers (Word document, 35KB). Thank you to each person and group! If you volunteered in 2025 and don’t see your name on the list, please accept our apologies for the oversight and email Judy Kingsbury to be added.

– Judy Kingsbury, volunteer program manager