SAN FRANCISCO — Hundreds of travel industry volunteers converged in the San Francisco Bay area in late May to participate in a clean-up project at Angel Island State Park for the eighth annual Tourism Cares restoration event.
The 300 volunteers represented more than 100 different companies from 30 states and four countries, including tour operators, destinations, hoteliers and other travel suppliers.
Angel Island is an important historic site in the San Francisco Bay, serving at different times as an immigration station and army garrison. Due to California’s recent budget shortfalls, the state park service was forced to curtail maintenance of many of the natural and historic sites on the island.
Tourism Cares volunteers worked for one day to complete a number of projects that would have taken park staffers months to finish. Projects ranged from painting restroom facilities to replacing walkways, stacking firewood for heating fuel, removing waste from storage areas and repairing deteriorated drainage ditches.
“The work that got done and the attitude of the people who pushed that work to completion was just fantastic,” said Roy Sterns, deputy director for communications for California State Parks. “In one day, they did tens of thousands of dollars worth of work, and during these tough budget times, that is immensely valuable to our park system.”
Tourism Cares is a nonprofit public charity that benefits society by preserving the travel experience for future generations by awarding grants to natural, cultural and historic sites worldwide; by presenting academic and service-learning scholarships to students of hospitality and tourism; and by organizing volunteer efforts to restore tourism-related sites in need of care and rejuvenation.
