ANACOSTIA RIVER OUTDOOR VOLUNTEER TRAIL
OVERVIEW
The Anacostia River Outdoor Volunteer Adventure Trail is a powerful new collaboration transforming the volunteer experience across the Anacostia River area. Led by the Friends of the National Arboretum (FONA), twelve local environmental organizations have joined forces to strengthen and diversify outdoor volunteerism.
Our shared goal is to break down barriers and create new pathways for everyone to discover the joy and benefits of volunteering. There are so many ways to give back—whether you are planting gardens, cleaning up waterways, or sharing fresh produce with neighbors.
Click the poster to view in full screen, or click here for a downloadable version.
DISCOVER NEW OPPORTUNITIES ON THE ADVENTURE TRAIL
We’re turning volunteering into an adventure with the Anacostia River Outdoor Volunteer Adventure Trail. We created a volunteer passport and poster to highlight volunteer opportunities in the Anacostia watershed and serve as your guide to get outside and make an impact in your community!
Our goal is to make volunteering more fun, accessible, and exploratory. The trail is one step towards building a more interconnected and vibrant volunteer ecosystem in the Anacostia River area.
Explore the trail map poster and passport to find opportunities of interest to you. Then, sign up to volunteer with a participating organization! Discover a new green space, try a new activity like crop harvesting or water testing, and meet fellow volunteers along the way. When you volunteer with a partner organization, you can receive the Volunteer Passport to keep track of your adventure and collect uniquely designed stamps from each organization.
View the list of volunteer opportunities below and sign up on the organization’s website to get started.
Cleanups + Environmental Restoration
- National Links Trust
- Ward 8 Woods Conservancy
- Friends of Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens
- Anacostia Riverkeeper
- Anacostia Watershed Society
- Friends of Anacostia Park
- Historic Congressional Cemetery
Agriculture + Food Access
- Friends of the National Arboretum
- Building Bridges Across the River – TheARC Farm
- City Blossoms
- DC Greens – The Well at Oxon Run
- Dreaming Out Loud
Have a question? Contact Max Skoglund at mskoglund@fona.org
PROJECT PHASES
This initiative brought together the volunteer coordinators and leaders from organizations across the watershed. We sat down to share our successes and tackle our common challenges, especially in recruiting new volunteers and keeping them engaged. From those conversations, we co-created three initiatives centering the main pillars of volunteer programming: Recruitment, Retention, and Recognition.
Removing Barriers with Volunteer Stipends
We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to experience the benefits of volunteering. But for many individuals, volunteering feels out of reach due to time or financial constraints. To help remove practical obstacles for first-time volunteers in Wards along the Anacostia River, we launched a volunteer stipend pilot program.
In partnership with Ward 8 Woods, we distributed one hundred $50 Visa gift cards in the Fall of 2025 to new volunteers at neighborhood clean-up events. The stipend is a “thank you” for trying something new and an investment in our shared community. Following the success of the stipend pilot program, Ward 8 Woods hopes to continue the program going forward.
Participants also shared their experiences through a survey, helping us understand the obstacles to volunteering and track their future interest. This valuable data will help us build more accessible and welcoming programs for everyone.
Photo by Anacostia Riverkeeper
The Adventure Trail and Passport
To showcase the incredible network of opportunities in our area, we created the interpretive Anacostia River Outdoor Volunteer Adventure Trail Map and Passport.
Designed by local artist Maria Toro Quijano, the vibrant Trail Map poster highlights all the organizations involved in this collaborative effort. The poster displays how volunteers, community members, wildlife, and plants all play vital roles in our local ecosystem. It’s designed to be a keepsake, proudly displayed in homes and community spaces to inspire people to get outdoors and volunteer.
The Volunteer Passport allows people to discover new volunteer opportunities and track their participation, all in one handy booklet. Volunteers can receive a passport by attending a partner organization’s volunteer event and earn a uniquely designed stamp to commemorate their participation. By getting to know the organizations featured in the poster and passport, we hope that residents of the Anacostia watershed will explore opportunities throughout the network and build lasting relationships with fellow volunteers, partner organizations, and the parts of the landscape they steward.
Celebrating Our Volunteers
Volunteers are the lifeblood of our work, and they deserve a celebration! In November 2025, we threw a thank-you party for the collective volunteer community. Held at the iconic GoGo Museum in Southeast D.C., over 100 volunteers and community members gathered with free food, a live GoGo band, and a whole lot of gratitude.
Every attendee received the beautiful Anacostia River Outdoor Volunteer Adventure Trail poster and got a preview of the passport pages. We also held special raffles, with each partner organization giving away a gift card to a past volunteer or someone who was eager to do so in the future.
As a first of its kind collaborative volunteer appreciation event, we received overwhelmingly positive feedback from volunteers who were grateful to be recognized. Volunteers and community leaders created new connections across organizations, and we laid the foundation for an exciting outdoor volunteering season to come—one in which we will continue to grow our shared community.
Photo by Anacostia Riverkeeper
PARTNERS
Thank you to every volunteer and partner organization who makes the Anacostia River Watershed a healthier, greener, and more connected place.
A Partnership Led By: Friends of the National Arboretum (FONA)
In Collaboration With:
- Anacostia Riverkeeper
- Anacostia Watershed Society
- Building Bridges Across the River – TheARC Farm
- City Blossoms
- DC Greens – The Well at Oxon Run
- Dreaming Out Loud
- Friends of Anacostia Park
- Friends of Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens
- Historic Congressional Cemetery
- National Links Trust
- Ward 8 Woods Conservancy
Do you represent an environmental organization in the Anacostia watershed? We hope this model inspires other collaborations. Contact us at info@fona.org to learn more.