Hudson Valley Corps - Education and Stewardship Assistant

Position Summary 

Stewardship and Education Assistant

 

The member will support education and stewardship activities at the Sam’s Point Area of Minnewaska State Park Preserve. Sam’s Point contains the globally unique high-altitude dwarf pitch pine barrens and a host of scenic and recreational resources that are popular with park patrons. The member will primarily assist the Educator with developing, presenting, and documenting education programming as well as providing informal interpretation to both school groups and the public. The member will also assist the Minnewaska Staff to implement land management activities to include mitigating visitor use impacts, provide invasive species control, and collect data for ecological monitoring projects.

 

The approximately 600,000 visitors who visit the entire Minnewaska State Park Preserve annually, represent an ethnically and economically diverse group. Sam’s Point Area typically gets around 100,000 visitors alone. Striking a balance between recreation and preservation happens best when negative impacts to the Park Preserve are addressed with timely and informed responses. Trail overuse/erosion, introduction and spread of invasive species, deer over browse and other recreational and biological impacts have the potential to significantly alter the landscape and threaten the rich biodiversity found in the Northern Shawangunks. In order to keep this landscape intact and offer world class recreation experiences to a growing audience, Sam’s Point Preserve needs to identify impacts and prioritize mitigation efforts to ensure that the negative impacts do not cause a degradation of the natural experience, available to park patrons.

 

Location 

Cragsmoor, NY

 

Schedule 

March 2, 2026 - October 16, 2026

 

Key Duties and Responsibilities 

60% of the member’s effort will be devoted to assisting in the development, delivery, and documentation of environmental and cultural education programming to school groups, other social groups (homeschool, scouts, etc.), and the public. This includes providing informal interpretation to patrons at the visitor center as well as at popular trailheads and destinations.

 

25% of the member’s effort will be devoted to working on visitor and ecosystem management, including invasive species management, trail impact mitigation, and assisting other Park Preserve staff in resurveying various ecological monitoring projects.

 

Goals in mind for the member are:

Goal 1: Assist the park staff with developing, delivering, and documenting a variety of education related programs and events including education for school groups, recreation, and education programs for the public, and informal interpretation at popular locations throughout the park.

 

Goal 2: Assist the park staff with researching and developing more accessible ways for visitors to recreate within the Park Preserve. This includes working with visitors from varying backgrounds. This includes re-doing the Sam’s Point specific booklets within the Visitor Center so people can learn about the park, adding accessible language to program descriptions, developing accessible programs.

 

Goal 3: Continue research, monitoring, and survey projects. Enhance and further protect the ecological resources of the park preserve through stewardship efforts such as trail impact mitigation and invasive species management as well as recruiting and coordinating volunteers to further assist with these efforts. This includes following project protocols for accurate data collection, organizing, compiling, and analyzing data, and presenting results.

 

Marginal Duties:

• Helping to document project progress (photos, notes, or social media updates).

• Participating in outreach or community engagement event.

Required Qualifications 

• Experience in customer service or informal education
• Experience in data collection
• Experience in trail maintenance
• Communications skills - both written and verbal
• Experience providing informal interpretation and/or education programming
• Education program development
• Focused self-motivated individual, able to work both independently and as a team member
• Volunteer recruitment and coordination
• Computer skills including Word and Excel
• Skills developed through experience and or training in performing physical land management activities, trail building/repairing, removal of invasive species, basic carpentry skills
• Field experience in data collection
• Ability to use GPS to track activities performed
• Experience navigating and traveling in remote are