Oxbow Center Volunteer Application

Ages: 14+ or 13 and under with a trusted adult

When: The 2nd Saturday of each month

What to Expect: Get ready for a hands-on day of conservation work in Oxbow’s riparian forest along the beautiful Snoqualmie River! You’ll play a crucial role in restoring the landscape by removing invasive weeds, planting native trees, and protecting and caring for our future forests all while enjoying a rewarding day of physical work in a beautiful natural setting.

Your Impact: You’re doing more than just pulling weeds and planting trees—you’re nurturing healthy ecosystems!
Your work helps:

• Restore salmon habitats, which also supports orca populations
• Improve air and water quality for our community
• Create a healthier forest and river for generations to come

Ages: 18+ for independent shifts. 16+ for staff-led shifts or 15 and under accompanied by a trusted adult. 

Where: Meet at the grey barn (Park in the Plant Stand parking lots)

What to Expect: Help our conservation team with ecological restoration and research projects while learning all about native plants, restoration techniques, and how we conserve and support our farms and ecosystems. You will remove invasive weeds, plant native trees and shrubs, care for and protect our youngest forests, and support our monitoring efforts. You will be hiking, bushwhacking, digging, and generally getting dirty, muddy, and sweaty in all weather conditions.

Your Impact: You’re doing more than just pulling weeds and planting trees—you’re nurturing healthy ecosystems!

Your work helps:

• Restore salmon habitats, which also supports orca populations
• Improve air and water quality for our community
• Create a healthier forest for generations to come

Ages: 12+: anyone under age 14 should have adult supervision and participation.

When: You may volunteer at Oxbow during the Plant Stand’s open hours or during business hours, Mondays through Fridays from 8 am to 4 pm. Journal stickering at your home can be done on your own schedule.

What to expect: You will support kids as they investigate and learn about their relationship to nature by creating nature journals with helpful prompts. You will add journal prompt stickers to notebooks, following a provided example. This volunteer opportunity is very flexible and can be done while enjoying Oxbow or take up to 100 journal-building kits home. This is an impactful activity that can be done while chatting with friends in the comfort of your favorite coffee shop, while soaking up some sun outdoors, or having a cozy indoor moment.

Your impact: The journals you create will help children to explore and observe the natural world and their place in it. Each child who experiences one of our education programs gets to take home and may continue to use their nature journal while exploring the places around them.

Your contributions help:

• Create a meaningful tool for observation and introspection through nature.
• Encourage children to become lifelong observers and scientists.
• Grow of our educational offerings

After you apply: We will reach out with you to discuss a journal-building time at Oxbow or a pick-up window for a take-home kit. If you know your preferences, you can include them in the notes section of this application. If you choose to work at Oxbow during business hours, you will then be asked to complete a Background Check Authorization form (18+ only).

Ages: 18+ or under 18 on a trial basis; anyone under 14 must be accompanied by an adult.  

When: Please commit to volunteering weekly for at least one month. Build your own schedule between April and September within operating hours: Monday-Friday, 8am-4pm during the cooler months and 7am-3pm during the hotter months. 

What to expect: Gardening! The Kids’ Farm is a dynamic, highly diversified one-acre space filled with vegetables, small fruits, flowers, native plants, dye and fiber plants, seed crops, and more. Some days are quiet and tranquil, with just the birds, bugs, and plants for company; other days, you may work alongside the energy of 5 to 100 children participating in programs led by our Education Team. 

Typical tasks include weeding, pruning, harvesting, and general crop maintenance. Individuals and small groups of all experience levels are welcome. After daily check-ins/trainings, much of the work is done independently without direct staff supervision. For those able to commit longer term (3+ months), there are opportunities to take greater ownership of specific spaces and contribute to the farm’s creative vision.   

Your impact: The Kids’ Farm is a truly magical and unique space, welcoming more than 2,500 children from across the region each year. Many of these kids have never seen where their food is grown—let alone harvested and tasted vegetables fresh from the field. All food not used by the children is harvested and donated to local food access partners.

• Create an exciting and welcoming space for children to explore food and science
• Increase the amount and quality of food we can grow and donate
• Support community programs that improve relationships with the environment and each other. 
  
  All volunteers get to harvest in-season veggies to take home! 

After you apply: The Kid’s Farm Coordinator will reach out to you to better understand your goals and schedule. You will then be asked to complete a Background Check Authorization form.

 
Preparing to volunteer: The Kid’s Farm is located outdoors and in the open, so please dress and prepare for the weather including appropriate layers, sun protection, insulation, raingear, and close-toed shoes. Bring a water bottle, any snacks you would like, and anything that you like to use or wear while gardening. Gloves, tools, water for refilling, shade, and restrooms will all be available. 

Parking and Meeting: Please park in the lots by the Plant Stand and walk down the road to the Kid’s Farm located just past the big grey barn. Ask for Farmer Lynnea. 

Ages: 14+ or 12+ with an adult

When:

• Thursdays 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. through 5/31
• Canceled Shifts: 2/21, 3/12, 3/19, 3/21

What to Expect:

As a flood recovery volunteer, you’ll play a critical role in stabilizing Oxbow’s native plant nursery after the impacts of the record-level flooding across the Snoqualmie Valley in December 2025. Your work will be focused on repairing infrastructure to get the nursery’s production of sustainably grown native plants up and running again!

Tasks will include

• Clean & sanitize flood-impacted pots, preparing them for our first round of transplanting
• Remove contaminated plants from our growing space, readying it for newly transplanted plants
• And more --as we continue to rebuild over the next week, we may find even more projects to tackle, so come prepared to dig, clean, and get your (gloved) hands dirty! 

It will be a rewarding day of physical work spent supporting native plants propagation for a healthy Cascadia region.

Ages: 16+

When: Thursday Mornings 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

What to Expect: Dig into a hands-on day supporting ecological restoration from the ground up at Oxbow’s Native Plant Nursery! As a nursery volunteer, you’ll play a key role in growing the region’s future forests by caring for young native plants. Tasks vary by season and may include seed processing and sowing, thinning, pruning, weeding, and greenhouse maintenance such as sanitation, pot washing, and general organization. It’s a rewarding day of meaningful, physical work spent among thousands of thriving native plants and the people who grow them.

Your Impact: Your work in the nursery helps fuel the restoration work that transforms landscapes across the region!

Your contributions help:

• Cultivate the native plants that become the backbone of thriving forests, prairies, and wetlands
• Provide high-quality plant material that supports salmon recovery and other critical wildlife habitats
• Enhance ecosystem resilience, leading to cleaner waterways, healthier soils, and a stronger environment for future generations

Volunteer groups can help us to complete our planting and invasive weed removal as well as maintenance of our restoration sites. Once an application is received, the volunteer coordinator will reach out to see if your group availability and size match our current or future projects

This is the waiver form for amphibian monitors with the Woodland Park Zoo.

This is the waiver for the Woodland Park Zoo's Carnivore Camera Monitoring project. Please only complete this form if you have signed up as a Carnivore Monitor at Oxbow Farm/Duvall Open Space sites with the Woodland Park Zoo. If you have completed paperwork with Oxbow in the past year, you do not need to complete this form.