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Employee and Guest VolunteerismSince 2000, Tauck employees and guests have volunteered at nearly a dozen different National Parks, tackling important projects that might not otherwise have been completed. Every fall, the company organizes an Employee Volunteer Day which we open to employees’ families and local guests. These Volunteer Days are a wonderful way for our employees and their immediate families to interact with our guests and enjoy the feeling of “giving back”. Through these annual events and smaller regional efforts, Tauck employees and guests have worked on behalf of a range of venues around the country, including Valley Forge National Historical Park, Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Site, Mesa Verde National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, Point Reyes National Seashore, Saguaro National Park, Harkness Memorial State Park, Ellis Island National Monument, Minute Man National Historical Park, the Old North Church, and Plimoth Plantation, just to name a few. In 2003, we introduced volunteer opportunities on tour and began our largest undertaking to date at Yellowstone National Park. In the program’s first year, over 1,600 Tauck guests, ages 9 to 90, helped to maintain historic buildings, clean ranger stations, refurbish picnic areas and amphitheatres, and landscape trailways and public areas. These “vacation volunteers” were extremely enthusiastic, with 90% reporting that volunteering enhanced their tour experience by giving them a different perspective of – and appreciation for – Yellowstone. Five years later, in 2008, we celebrated the 10,000th Tauck volunteer at Yellowstone. After much hard work in Yellowstone, the on-tour volunteer experience moved to Grand Teton National Park in 2009 where Tauck looks forward to celebrating another 10,000 volunteers. Click here to view photos of this years volunteers. We are very pleased that our volunteers and all of their hard work have received national recognition. In 2005, the United States Interior Department presented Tauck with their “Take Pride In America Award” for volunteerism. In 2006, the Yellowstone program was included in Reader’s Digest magazine’s list of “America’s 100 Best.” And that same year we were very honored to receive the “Preserve America Presidential Award” – the nation’s highest honor for historic preservation – from President Bush at the White House. All of the work done by Tauck guests in the National Parks is truly important. Much of it is “preventative maintenance” that precludes the need for more costly remedial repairs later on, and all of it frees the parks’ limited staff to focus their time and expertise on other critical tasks facing the parks. Volunteer opportunities in Grand Teton National Park are available on the following tours: Yellowstone & Grand Teton National ParksA 10-day journey through Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and South Dakota. Click here for the complete itinerary.Cowboy CountryA memorable 8-day family vacation in the great American West. Click here for the complete itinerary.Our passion for volunteering happens not only in the National Parks, but also right in our own backyard. Tauck World Discovery employees donate their time to such organizations as Habitat for Humanity, March of Dimes, the Multiple Sclerosis Society, Norwalk Hospital, Norwalk/Nagarote Sister City Project, food banks, family service agencies, community development organizations and many others. Tauck World Discovery also matches gifts of dollars or volunteer hours contributed by employees to eligible charities. |
