The annual volunteer day to get out and work in the Vicksburg National Military Park, helping preserve and restore the historic Civil War site, is set for Saturday.

It will be the 16th annual Civil War Trust Park Day, said Virginia DuBowy, the park’s natural resources program manager.

A special project has been designated to cut and clear brush and debris from a private African-American cemetery encompassed but not owned by the park, DuBowy said.

“It’s in a kind-of forgotten area of the park we’d like to clean up,” she said. The cemetery, comprising about two acres in the northern part of the park past Thayer’s Approach, was within a parcel the VNMP obtained in a trade with the City of Vicksburg in the 1960s, she said.

Volunteers are asked to meet in the parking lot of the USS Cairo Museum at 8 a.m. wearing work clothes geared toward sun- and insect-protection — long-sleeved shirts, long pants, caps and boots or tennis shoes. Sunscreen and bottled water also are recommended, and hand tools such as loppers and pruners are also welcomed.

The first 75 volunteers will receive T-shirts, DuBowy said, and a pizza lunch will be provided at noon in the Cairo picnic area.

The Civil War Trust sponsors the event nationally each spring. The VNMP is one of more than 100 sites in 25 states that will benefit from volunteers who will help clear and build trails, remove trash, paint and perform other maintenance and restoration chores.

The event is underwritten with a grant from History TM, formerly the History Channel, and endorsed by Take Pride in America.

The Civil War Trust is the largest nonprofit battlefield preservation organization in the country, DuBowy said. Its goal is to preserve the nation’s endangered Civil War sites and to promote appreciation of them through education and heritage tourism.

The trust has participated in the preservation of 32,000 acres of historic battlefields in 20 states. More information is available at www.civilwar.org.

If you go

Volunteers are needed Saturday for cleanup activities at the Vicksburg National Military Park for the Civil War Trust’s 16th annual Park Day. Meet at 8 a.m. in the parking lot of the U.S.S. Cairo, dressed for outdoor work from trash removal to trail clearing. Enter by the Fort Hill gate. Pizza lunch and presentation provided by the park at noon. For more information, call Virginia DuBowy at 601-636-0583.