Volunteer
Volunteer with Sutro Stewards to build and maintain trails, improve habitat, increase biodiversity, and propagate and care for native plants. Volunteer events are every Wednesday and 1st & 3rd Saturdays. No experience necessary, tools and gloves provided.
Nursery & Habitat Stewardship
Wednesdays | 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Meet at the Sutro Nursery (476 Johnston Drive)
Volunteer at the Sutro Native Plant Nursery to grow native plants and improve habitat. Complete projects including propagation, seed collection and processing, transplanting, and other nursery care, as well as conservation projects including invasive plant weeding, native planting, and more.
Trail & Habitat Stewardship
1st & 3rd Saturdays | 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Meet at the Woods Lot (100 Medical Center Way)
Tackle trail work to create, rebuild, and maintain a multi-use trail system; weed invasive vegetation or plant natives at conservation sites to improve habitat quality and biodiversity. We work until 12:30 PM then break for lunch and refreshments (provided by Sutro Stewards & UCSF).
Groups of 4+ must sign up in advance to ensure space. Looking for an opportunity for your team or office? Check out our corporate group events to learn more!
Download our waivers and bring them with you to the volunteer program.
Sutro Stewards is dedicated to fostering a safe and inclusive environment for all of our volunteers! Please read our community guidelines.
The Nursery, Trails, and Habitat programs need dedicated crew leaders to instruct and support new volunteers to help get projects done safely and effectively! If you are interested in being more involved and gain experience leading others, managing projects, and learning technical aspects of trail building, nursery operations, or conservation practices, become a Crew Leader!
Crew Leaders are expected to commit to a minimum of 10 volunteer events per year, and attend a crew leader training. Interested in being a crew leader? Contact us, and make sure to include if you are interested in nursery, trails, or conservation.
Crew Leader
The Mount Sutro Native Plant Nursery is seeking a volunteer skilled and experienced with construction, building, and carpentry. We currently have several projects to execute building simple structures around our nursery facility. Sutro Stewards provides all materials and supplies, and some tools. Our current project list includes: soil bin with moveable slats, storage shelves, and a roof structure to cover our potting bench area.
We are looking for someone to advise, assist with design, and carry out projects alongside volunteers with assistance from staff. An ideal candidate is willing to work with and teach novices to complete projects. Our work parties generally take place on Wednesday mornings, and 1st and 3rd Saturdays of every month; availability at those times is helpful but not required.
Contact us to learn more and let us know if you have questions, or require additional information. Please tell us briefly about relevant experience leading projects such as described above, and your availability. Thank you!
Carpentry/Building
We're working to create the first major trailhead to the UCSF Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve from an outside street! The trailhead will have a gathering area and map and information kiosk. We're repurposing old granite slabs from one of the original Affiliated Colleges buildings on Parnassus that was taken down many years ago (learn more). Leave your mark on the trailhead as you learn to use masonry tools to shape and face the granite slabs, feel the power of teamwork as you move the large stones into place for seating and retaining walls, build a wood kiosk, and more. Join us 1st & 3rd Saturdays, plus other special event days just for this effort. Email Craig to learn more.
Clarendon Trailhead Volunteer
We are seeking a tech savvy volunteer to help build a plant inventory database. The database would allow us to track thousands of plants from seed to field to improve our conservation efforts regarding material origin, survival rate, and nursery timelines. We are looking for someone familiar with SQL Server, basic web-building, and web design. Please contact us for more information.
Database/Web Development
We regularly welcome volunteers to work with us on Wednesday mornings and 1st & 3rd Saturdays. Volunteer events include nursery projects to propagate and care for native plants, habitat conservation projects to increase biodiversity and wildlife habitat throughout the 61-acre Mount Sutro Open Space, and trail projects to build and maintain the 4.5-mile multi-use trail system. No experience necessary, just a desire to learn and contribute! See the event calendar for opportunities and to sign up.
(Corporate groups can find additional information here).