Join us to make a lasting, visible difference in the well-being & future of Whatcom communities — and the world.
We’d LOVE to have YOU volunteering on our team!
Volunteer Roles
Questions? Please review the FAQs section first, then feel free to reach out if your question is not answered.
Work Party Volunteer
How can you have fun, meet others, enjoy fresh air, and participate hands-on in an important cause — all in a safe manner? Volunteer in one of our outdoor work parties for a few hours to work with other community members to either remove tree-killing English ivy, pot new seedlings, prepare planting sites, or to plant trees with us! Click here for the work party schedule!
Outreach Table Volunteer
Are you a friendly, outgoing sort, who enjoys chatting with people and getting them excited about a great cause? We need YOU to join our squad of ready-to-go outreach table volunteers. We frequently have info tables at community events, business fairs, and other venues. All are fantastic opportunities to educate the public 1:1 in person about our exciting initiatives and to generate interest in volunteering or donating to support our work. You never know what wonderful person might get involved with us — because of you!
Tool Manager
As a non-profit, it’s super important we take good care of the tools of our trade — shovels, mattocks, loppers, hand trimmers, etc. — so they can last longer, avoiding unnecessary replacement costs. Will you help us with this essential task? The Tool Manager will thoroughly clean tools after work parties, safely store the tools between events in a secure and weather-proof garage, shed, or barn, and transport them to/from sites (ideally, via a pickup truck or van). With only a few hours/month time commitment, you will make a BIG impact!
Social Media Content Creator
Do you want to use your social media content creation and writing skills for a great cause? With the popularity of social media, it’s an essential medium for getting the word out about advocacy actions, the importance of trees and forests, volunteering opportunities, and fundraising. If you’re familiar with Facebook and Instagram, and adept at communicating and engaging online audiences through original writing and graphic design, this could be the volunteer role for you! Just 1-2 hours per week can have a big impact!
Tree Wrangler
Join our awesome team of Tree Wranglers! Tree Wranglers are like the stage crew at a play or concert. They help our Planting Coordinator to plan/prepare planting sites and ensure all tools and materials are ready to go and arranged prior to a tree-planting work party. During work parties, they also provide instruction and guidance to tree-planting volunteers. This is a great opportunity to learn a lot about tree planting and to be part of a passionate and dedicated team, while doing satisfying work essential to our mission!
Pro Bono Attorney
WMTP seeks a local attorney (active or retired) on a pro bono basis. You’d review proposed contracts with partners, forms we use in our operations, and other occasional needs requested by our Executive Director. Occasionally advising our Board on policy matters would be a welcomed bonus. A few hours per month of your feedback would have a tremendous impact on our success!
Administrative Errand-Runner
We’re looking for a cheerful individual based in Bellingham (at home and with transportation) who would enjoy being on-call to occasionally run errands for us. Example errand runs include picking up items from a printer, transferring signs or other items to a different team member, etc.. You can always decline an errand request of course if it conflicts with your other needs on that day or if you are traveling, etc.. This helpful role allows our paid staff to devote more time to other needs of our nonprofit.
Calendar view of upcoming events
Upcoming WMTP Work Parties
Check out our Winter-Spring 2026 schedule below!
Registration is required to participate in all events – please sign up if you plan to attend, to ensure you receive event-specific updates and details you need to know.
Registration deadline for all events is 11:59 pm the day before.
Coordinating a group to volunteer together? First, click here to see special details that apply. Then please contact us before you sign up as a group. Thanks!
Saturday, April 11th, 12-3pm: Jensen Family Forest Park
This beautiful park near Custer, WA had been in the Jensen family for generations until the family donated the 23-acre forest, placed under a conservation easement held by Whatcom Land Trust, to Whatcom County Parks in 2006. The park is home to many mature trees including Douglas firs and bigleaf and vine maples. It also protects important habitat and has an accessible trail for public use. It’s a beautiful park and will be even more enhanced by this planting project!
Registration is required to attend – please sign up below!
Saturday, April 18th, 12-3pm: Jensen Family Forest Park
This beautiful park near Custer, WA had been in the Jensen family for generations until the family donated the 23-acre forest, placed under a conservation easement held by Whatcom Land Trust, to Whatcom County Parks in 2006. The park is home to many mature trees including Douglas firs and bigleaf and vine maples. It also protects important habitat and has an accessible trail for public use. It’s a beautiful park and will be even more enhanced by this planting project!
Registration is required to attend – please sign up below!
More work parties are added periodically to this page — subscribe to our free monthly e-newsletter to get the earliest scoop on our updates!
Please spread the word if you know anyone else who may like to attend one of our fun upcoming work parties! Thanks!
Volunteering FAQs
A: Details such as the work party’s exact location, parking details, etc. will be emailed to registered participants no later than two days before the work party. Please be sure to check your spam folder, and if you don’t receive the details by two days before the work party, contact us ASAP.
Cancellations and other changes such as updates in location, date, or time for an event do occur occasionally. We notify registered volunteers first and foremost of such changes, before doing our best to update all public posts, so it is always a good idea to monitor your email closely if you register for any events.
A: If you need to cancel for some unforeseen reason, that’s okay — just please let us know ASAP by email. We adjust our work plan, parking arrangements, and recruitment efforts around registration numbers, so high numbers of late cancellations and no-call/no-shows can be detrimental to the flow and productivity of the event. We understand unexpected schedule conflicts happen, so we just ask that you let us know as soon as you know you’ll need to cancel.
A: For kids 8-14, a waiver must be signed for each youth by a legal guardian, and they must be accompanied and closely supervised by a legal adult. Youth 15-17 years old may attend without a parent or guardian as long as they have the signed waiver! Youth will not be allowed to participate without the signed waiver. Please request the waiver in your registration form if needed.
A: Please wear sturdy closed-toed shoes, long pants, and weather-appropriate clothing. Bring a water bottle and favorite gloves if you have your own. WMTP provides all the necessary tools, extra gloves, light snacks and beverages.
A: It depends on the time of year. Tree seedlings are best planted in dormant (cold) months. So our work parties from late October through mid-April tend to be focused on that. The remainder of the year our work parties maintain existing planting sites or remove invasive English ivy to save mature trees.
A:Yes, we love doing that! Please consider an Employee Team-Building Work Party with us! We’ll handle the planning/logistics and support everyone at the event. The fun, satisfying work and team-building can have a terrific positive impact on your colleagues!
A: Please contact us at volunteering@whatcommilliontrees.org before you sign up. Work parties are a wonderful, positive team-building experience and we’re delighted to host large groups, but they do involve some extra coordinating and communication. Thank you for reading and following the additional guidelines below to help us best support your team’s success!
- For groups of 10-15 members, please give us at least three weeks’ advance notice for the event you wish to attend together to ensure there will be sufficient space and supplies.
- For groups of 16+ members participating, we may be able to coordinate a dedicated work party just for your team! Please give us at least six weeks’ advance notice ahead of when you wish to hold the event (eight weeks minimum for any event you wish to happen in April — Earth Day events are always in high demand).
- For youth/student groups, please have a faculty sponsor or adult facilitator from the group contact us to coordinate. (If the coordination/communication piece is part of an assignment to gain leadership experience for an individual student or group of students, please let us know. We will still require an adult contact as back-up, and extra lead time to support effective planning and communication.)
- For younger groups of youth (8-14 yrs of age), at least one adult chaperone for every two youths is required to attend with the group. WMTP staff are not responsible for providing child supervision. The nature of the work, involving sharp and often heavy tools, requires close adult supervision to ensure everyone’s utmost safety, and the adults in your group need to provide that supervision as part of their participation.
Liability waivers: Every adult must individually sign WMTP’s liability waiver for themselves before the event, and the event coordinator from your group is responsible for ensuring its distribution and providing reminders as needed. Each youth in attendance must have the youth liability waiver/consent form signed for them by a legal guardian.
A: We love to support our volunteers this way if possible, but it depends on the type of service needed, as well as whether our schedule and available opportunities will be able to meet the target number of hours by the deadline. You may need to work with an additional organization to attain the hours needed. We are not able to accommodate court-ordered community service for any violent convictions.
You can let us know when you register if the purpose of your registration is for community service or program credit, or send us an email first to let us know what you’re looking for and find out if this might be the right fit.
A: When you register for and attend a work party, those hours are logged automatically for you, which means you have a volunteering record with us! At this time, we do not have a way for volunteers to log in and review their own records, but you can send us an email request.
If you have done WMTP-approved volunteer work outside of a scheduled work party, you should be logging those hours yourself via this form, and they will also be added to your overall volunteering record, which you can request via email.
A: Any time you submit a sign-up form, you should always get an automatic confirmation email to the email address you provided which indicates we’ve received your form and lets you know what to expect next. If you did not receive such an email within a few minutes of hitting submit, please start by checking your spam folder and any other email inboxes you might have used, then send us an email to let us know if you didn’t get anything.
If you indicated ‘Just work parties’ as your interest, you’re all set! Go ahead and check the schedule for work parties, and then you can RSVP to any that work for your schedule (this is a separate sign-up step, though a much shorter form, than the original New Volunteer Registration you completed). Be sure to check back often and keep an eye on your email for updates when new events are added.
We are a small staff and review many volunteer registrations. If you indicated an interest in other roles but haven’t heard back yet, it’s possible that there just aren’t any additional roles currently available which are a good fit for your availability, interests, and skills. If you think this may be not right and would like to find out more, feel free to reach out!
