How You Can Volunteer to Clean Up the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill & Register for a Green Job Now!

How You Can Volunteer to Clean Up the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill & Register for a Green Job Now!

Oil is starting to cover the beaches and wildlife of Louisiana. Millions more gallons of crude may hit the shorelines of Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. Here’s how you can help go to www.Usagreenjobsnow.Org

Volunteers wishing to help clean up the Louisiana coast can sign up here. The Louisiana Gulf Response is a coordinated effort between several nonprofit or governmental conservation and environmental organizations: The Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, the National Wildlife Federation, the National Audubon Society and the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program. Volunteers are needed to assist with a variety of needs — from oiled wildlife recovery to monitoring and photographing oil movement to providing a boat and driver for response activities. No specific training or experience is necessary, although you must be at least 18 years old to volunteer. Some tasks, such as food preparation, may require no training. Other tasks, such as washing oiled birds, may require specific certifications or skills. They encourage pre-veterinary students, veterinary technicians and those with HAZWOPER training to volunteer. Anyone with experience in dealing with wildlife handling, rehabilitation, or hazardous materials clean up is also strongly encouraged to register.Click here to sign up.

·         Louisiana's St. Tammany Humane Society seeks trained and untrained volunteers to help clean and rehab oiled pelicans. Call Catherine Wilbert at 985-674-6898 or click here.

·         The Sierra Club is mobilizing volunteers, and will connect you with opportunities to help. Pleaseclick here to sign up and for more information.

·         Human hair from beauty salons, animal fur from groomers and pantyhose are needed by San Fransisco-based Matter of Trust to make homemade booms to sop up the oil. The fur is stuffed into pantyhose, which give shape to the booms. Volunteers are needed at warehouses in different sites across the country to gather for “Boom-B-Qs” to learn how to make the booms.

·         The National Audubon Society is seeking volunteers wishing to clean up birds. Click here to register. The Audobon Society also seeks eBirders, people needed to survey local beaches and marshes for birds; your observations will help conservationists and researchers prioritize their efforts and asses the impacts of the spill. Click here for more information or to volunteer.

·         Another option for those wishing to help oiled birds, Pascagoula River Audubon Center, part of Audobon Mississippi, is organizing training on cleaning wildlife affected by the oil spill. Volunteers may register their contact information here.

·         Tristate Bird Rescue & Research is also coordinating on-the-ground volunteer efforts.

·         Save Our Seabirds is a Sarasota, Florida-based bird rescue group that is looking for volunteers and support as its response team prepares to help oiled wildlife. Please click here to fill out their online form or call 941-388-3010.

·         Folks on the Florida Keys are mobilizing volunteers to fend oil off its shores. You can register here. About 800 boat captains have already offered the use of their vessels, and scores of people have signed up for classes in how to clean up oil that could begin showing up on the coast later this week.

·         The city of Biloxi, Mississippi is signing up volunteers at www.biloxi.ms.us/Volunteer.asp for when the oil undoubtably reaches its shores.