Mississippi River - Visitor Center Front Desk Volunteer

The Mississippi River Visitor Center is located on the military base Rock Island Arsenal at Locks and Dam 15 in Rock Island, IL. What brings most visitors in is the chance to see boats and barges navigate through the locks and learn more about the Mississippi River. The center also acts as an information center for the Mississippi River Project that has other recreations areas up and down the river. The visitor center has displays, a small movie theater, fish tank, observation deck and a gift shop. A large part of volunteering here is interacting with guests and explaining the locking process and other various missions of the Corps of Engineers. Typical volunteer duties include: greeting guests, opening/closing procedures, light cleaning, handling gift shop sales and restocking brochures. A single Park Ranger is assigned to the visitor center, but volunteers should expect to work on their own often as rangers also have to patrol offsite locations. The visitor center is open Tuesday – Friday, 9am - 4pm. Volunteers will need to go through the Rock Island Arsenal's security procedures to obtain access to the base before volunteering May start. Availability can be flexible in certain situations.