Volunteer to plant longleaf pines at Big Thicket National Preserve on Martin Luther King Jr. Day/NPS file

Big Thicket National Preserve is looking for volunteers on Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, January 18, for the preserve's annual longleaf pine tree planting event. This event has been taking place at Big Thicket for more than a decade.

Due to current COVID-19 conditions, Big Thicket has modified the event to allow for volunteers to participate in a safe manner. The following measures will be in place to keep everyone safe: 

• Volunteers will have to pre-register for the event and sign-up for an arrival time, starting on the top of the hour from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. 
• No more than 10 volunteers will be allowed to sign up for each hour which will allow for smaller groups of volunteers to remain at a safe distance while planting. 
• Volunteers will be planting in spaced out areas and will be collecting planting materials from multiple locations throughout the planting area. 
• Tools used during the planting event will not be shared between volunteers. Once a tool is returned, preserve staff will sanitize the tool before it can be used by another volunteer.
• Water coolers will not be provided to refill water bottles, but water will be available for volunteers at locations throughout the planting area. 

“We feel confident with the safety precautions in place we will be able to provide volunteers a meaningful way to contribute on Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, similar to previous years," said Superintendent Wayne Prokopetz.

To sign up for the event, call the Big Thicket Visitor Center at (409) 951-6700 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. seven days a week. Once registered, volunteers will receive the location of the event and volunteer paperwork to be filled out before their arrival.

Big Thicket National Preserve is located in southeast Texas, near the city of Beaumont and 75 miles northeast of Houston. The preserve consists of nine land units and six water corridors encompassing more than 113,000 acres.

The Big Thicket, often referred to as a “biological crossroads,” is a transition zone between four distinct vegetation types – the moist eastern hardwood forest, the southwestern desert, the southeastern swamp, and the central prairies. Species from all of these different vegetation types come together in the thicket, exhibiting a variety of vegetation and wildlife that has received global interest.