Park Day is scheduled for Saturday, March 27, and more VIPs (Volunteers in the Park) are needed to attend.

Local groups like the McCallie Soccer Team have expressed interest in Park Day, as well as a gentleman living in Delavan, Wisc., who is planning to attend the event. He said he was interested in the Civil War and wanted to help out on the Battlefields.

Jim Szyjkowski, the Park’s Cultural Resource Manager, reported that this year’s event will have work projects being conducted in six different Park locations, all starting at 9 a.m.

At Chickamauga Battlefield, volunteers will be placing historic tablets, building a section of fence near the Brotherton Cabin, cutting privet, adding wood chips to a way side exhibit path, and working on the planting beds around the Visitor Center.

Volunteers reporting to the Cravens House on Lookout Mountain will be removing exotic plants from the view shed below the building.

Point Park volunteers will be clearing the vista along the west side of the mountain, as well as, mulching trees and planting beds.

At the Bragg Reservation on Missionary Ridge, VIPs will install three historic tablets overlooking the ridge-cut and remove exotic plants from the hillside looking down into the city.

Litter pick up activities are scheduled for both the Orchard Knob and Signal Point units of the Military Park.

Szyjkowski also stated that he knows of other volunteers that will be making a long trip from up north to participate in Park Day. At least three living history re-enactors from Ohio heard about monuments being vandalized in January and decided that they wanted to come to the park and volunteer. The members of the 49th Ohio Re-enactors Unit also raised money to help pay for the monument clean up.

Sponsored locally by the Friends of the Park, Executive Director Kay Parish is leading the effort to recruit volunteers and match them with projects and work sites. Volunteers can choose a specific project to work on or just select the Park site nearest to where they live.

For more information about Park Day projects, contact the Friends Info Line at (423) 624-6914 and leave your name, phone number, the number of people who will be helping, and the Park unit where you desire to perform your service.

The Friends organization will be providing snacks and soft drinks. The national sponsor, the Civil War Preservation Trust, will be providing T-shirts to all volunteers who help out that day.

With 48,000 members, CWPT is the largest nonprofit battlefield preservation organization in the United States. Its goal is to preserve our nation’s endangered Civil War sites and to promote appreciation of these hallowed grounds through education and heritage tourism.