On a recent Saturday, nine boys from Boy Scout Troop 316 held out a hand to the environment by participating in the King County Volunteer Restoration Stewardship Program. The scouts joined other community volunteers on county property — in what is known as the Log Cabin Natural Area along Issaquah Creek — to help improve the environment by planting hundreds of native plants.

Before their arrival, a mammoth tarp had covered the area for two years in order to kill the relentless blackberries that had overtaken the Log Cabin Natural Area. Tarps such as the one used for this project are reused repeatedly on several projects over the yeas to save money and limit landfill waste.

The volunteers worked from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. under rainy skies in ankle deep mud, armed with only shovels and gloves, planting native shrubs and trees such as ocean spray, snowberry, sword fern and wild rose, along with big leaf maple, spruce, Western red cedar and red alder.

Volunteer opportunities such as this one abound. Those interested in lending a hand should contact Tina Miller at 206-296-2990 or visit the county Web site: www.metrokc.gov/parks/stewardship/volunteerevents.html.