The National Park Service is celebrating its centennial across the country and here at the Vicksburg National Military Park with a call to volunteer.

Entry to all national parks will be free Thursday, Aug. 25, and Friends of Vicksburg National Military Park and Campaign along with the VNMP will host a birthday reception with free refreshments and a photo booth in the visitor center of the park from 2 to 4 p.m.

“We’re using this as a platform to really motivate and call volunteers,” said Bess Averett, executive director of Friends of VNMP and Campaign. “We would like to see people motivated to connect with their park and engage with them to become active volunteers and stewards of the public land.”

Park superintendent Bill Justice, centennial volunteer ambassador Molly Cadwell and park rangers will be on hand to talk to visitors about the park and encourage the community to get involved.

“We’re looking at this as a big launch of our push to get more volunteers in the park,” Cadwell said. “The park service nationwide is really working on that in the centennial year.”

She said the park isn’t just for tourists.

“It’s especially the people of Vicksburg’s park,” Cadwell said. “I hope that through celebrating (the centennial) we can also celebrate all the park can give to the people of Vicksburg.”

In addition to volunteer clean up days, which Averett said usually have good participation, the park is looking for people to fill recurring volunteer positions at the information desks and in maintenance. Those volunteers can work as few as two days a month to as much as they would like and will be trained by park staff.

“We’re working on developing a couple other positions,” Cadwell said.  “So if there is something that someone feels really passionate about doing at the park but maybe we don’t actually have that position written out, they could still come to us with that idea and we can see if it works and talk about ways to get them involved.”

It is vital to the park to have volunteers, Cadwell said, because the more help the staff receives the more activities and programs the park can offer to the public. She mentioned the Junior Ranger Camp is only possible with the help of volunteer teachers from the community.

“With the help of volunteers we were able to put together a really phenomenal program,” she said.

Often times rangers are working information desks and are not able to utilize their expertise, but with volunteers manning those desks, the rangers should have more time available to educate the public in other ways and to provide more special projects, which enhances the park, Averett said.

“Our park staff gets stretched really thin,” she said. “It’s critical (to have volunteers) because a lot of times our interpretive team is in that role (at the information desks), and this would allow the ability to free up that interpretive staff to do more programing in the park.”

Averett is excited to finally get an organized volunteer corps put together in the quest to make the park the best it can be and is looking forward to the centennial celebration.

“It’s just a great day to visit your park,” she said.