Become a Force for Nature! Become a Master Naturalist!

Always wanted to volunteer or love to volunteer?

We may be the right fit for you! We spend most of our time outside! Don’t like being outside much? We still, after your training, may have interests for you that involve more environmental education outreach, chapter administration or citizen science opportunities! We are a great and fun group of people with a variety of interests and backgrounds

We look forward to meeting you. We will be holding a Basic Training Course starting the end of August which will prepare you to become a Certified Virginia Master Naturalist volunteer.

A little about the program….

The VMN Program is a statewide corps of volunteers providing education, outreach, and service dedicated to the beneficial management of natural resources and natural areas within their communities.

Our volunteers engage the public in education and outreach, such as the county fair, school and scout programs and educational hikes. We have many volunteers working on Citizen Science projects with data being sent to researchers. Some of these projects are only available to our volunteers. We are active in insect surveys, water quality surveys, bluebird monitoring and other great projects. Additionally, we are busy in stewardship, clearing out non-native, invasive plants, and vines (saving trees!), cleaning streams and more. Some of our volunteers participate in all types of projects and others just concentrate their efforts in one area.

Award winning!

Our chapter, Merrimac Farm Master Naturalists, is a four-time Award Winning Virginia Master Naturalist Chapter! We have won the VMN Chapter of the Year, won two awards with our partners for a clean water initiative in Manassas, one state award and a county award and were named Organization of the Year by Ducks Unlimited as well.

Join us Thursday night and learn more about us and the program!